


flashes appeared at the corner of my eyes (i saw the stars and i didn't ask why)

by Lightning of Farosh (Medea_Nunc_Sum)



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Badass Hyrule, Fairy Hyrule, Gen, Hyrule-Centric, Injury Recovery, Legend-centric, Linked Universe (Legend of Zelda), Magic, Positive Hyrule Fic, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Smart Hyrule, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:28:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23928388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medea_Nunc_Sum/pseuds/Lightning%20of%20Farosh
Summary: Sometimes the cracks between worlds are too thin. Sometimes they're hidden beneath rocks or along the walls of buildings and cliffs.Sometimes they're sealed over, but it takes one moment, one decision, for them to be broken open again.
Relationships: Hyrule & Legend (Linked Universe), Legend (Linked Universe) & Princess Hilda, Legend (Linked Universe) & Ravio (Legend of Zelda), Princess Hilda & Ravio (Legend of Zelda)
Comments: 25
Kudos: 219





	flashes appeared at the corner of my eyes (i saw the stars and i didn't ask why)

**Author's Note:**

> Please read ending notes for more possible TW that are spoilers.

“You know,” Hyrule said, laying on his back and watching as Legend dug his fingers into his boots to try and dig out some muck. “If you wore trousers that wouldn’t be a problem.” 

“Don’t talk to me,” Legend shot back, giving up on his boots to reach over and smear what he managed to dig out down Hyrule’s front. Not that it made much of a difference; they were both covered in bits of the swamp. “Not all of us like rolling in the dirt.”

Quiet laughter fell from Hyrule’s lips and he fell back into the reed, hair stuck to his face, eyes on the sky. Sunlight dripped across his freckles. “You’re just grumpy cause these monsters didn’t have the dignity of making camp someplace that isn’t...” he pulled a handful of plant from the ground and the roots slid free with ease, mud dripping off the ends, “ _this_.”

Gnats hovered in a swarm not too far away, staying in a motley cloud-like shape. 

Legend rolled onto his side, turning away from them. “You know what?” He said. “You’re right. Why couldn’t they have picked someplace that wasn’t so sticky? Or humid? Or _gross_?”

“Those all mean the exact same thing.”

“No they don’t. Just because you like colder weather—”

Hyrule scooped up a handful of mud and slapped it down on blonde hair. It splattered down the back of Legend’s tunic, slithering down his spine, and felt uncomfortably, _unnaturally,_ warm. He pulled back instinctually, shuddering and pawing at the fabric.

“Oh, gross. _Gross_. Hyrule, I swear to _Hylia_ —”

Beside him, the other hero snorted and burst into bubbly giggles. “Oh no,” he managed, wiggling away so Legend’s hand slapped down into more of the muck. “Looks like we’ll have to head back. Tell the guy we didn’t find anything today. How _sad_.”

“You’re a little shit, you know that?” Legend grabbed the shoulders of his tunic and pulled it higher, grimacing as mud slid faster down his skin. “Why’d you even volunteer to come with me?”

“Well,” Hyrule laid on his side, elbow in the mud, chin on his hand. He looked utterly unbothered by the mess down his own tunic. “You said he just wanted someone to go check it out but... there hasn’t been a lot of monster activity here in awhile.”

Tugging his tunic back down, Legend grumbled but fell back into the muck. It wasn’t like he would magically get clean in the next couple of minutes so he might as well accept his fate. “Sure,” he said. “Monsters were pretty rare even when another world was bleeding into this one. Just octoroks and smaller things.”

“So the fact that there are sightings _now_...”

Legend grunted and picked a bit of reed off his shoulder. He didn’t answer but, then again, he didn’t need to. 

Beside him, Hyrule sighed and pushed himself up. “Suppose we should go back to looking for them, then.”

“You shoved me." Placing the back of his hand against his forehead, Legend sighed heavily. “I figured I had a right to stay here for a while.”

“You tripped.” Hyrule kicked some mud at him and ignored Legend’s undignified squawk. “You decided that running in your Pegasus boots would be an _excellent_ idea and then you,” he slapped one hand on the other mimicking the sight of Legend’s flight through the air. “Hit a rock.”

Flopping back into the swamp, Legend groaned. “I don’t deserve this,” he said to the sky. “I saved this world multiple times, freed a deity, helped out all of you, and still you let him humiliate me like this.”

“They can’t help you with problems of your own making,” Hyrule said sagely and squatted beside him. “Come on, get up. The sooner we figure out where they are the sooner we can get out of here.”

“You’re not the boss of me,” Legend said, but took the hand offered to him and allowed the other hero to yank him out of the mud. There was a slurping sound as he pulled his boots out of the worst of it. He grimaced. 

Hyrule sniggered.

“Yeah, yeah,” Legend stomped past him. “ _Hilarious_.”

“Aw, Legend,” Hyrule bounded beside him, almost jumping if it wasn’t for the sludge they trudged through. “I mean, you could just think of this as an _excellent_ lesson.”

Narrowing his eyes, Legend turned to Hyrule. “Yeah? What kind of lesson?”

“That maybe,” brown eyes were bright with mischief as Hyrule leaned in. “You should use your boots in places where you can see the ground.”

Legend struck, wrapping an arm around Hyrule’s shoulders and tugging him into a loose chokehold. Leaning down, he scooped up a handful of swamp and slapped it down onto already brown hair, rubbing it in for extra measure. “Maybe,” he said over Hyrule’s squeals, ignoring the hands clawing at his arm and holding the smaller hero against his chest. “You shouldn’t get so close to someone who is willing to _kick your ass._ ”

“Geddoff!”

“Nah,” Legend said, tugging Hyrule along. Palms slapped against his side, his back, his ribs. He rubbed Hyrule’s cheek into the mud on his tunic and smirked at the fierce grumbling that followed. “I think this is fair.”

“ _You would_ ,” Hyrule tugged once more to see if he could get his head out. 

Legend tightened his hold ever so slightly. Jerked when fingers pinched his waist. “Hey! None of that.”

Hot breath hit his skin and Hyrule grumbled but stopped his squirming. 

A crow called out in the trees and Legend leaned back, trying to see if he could find where it came from. The sun was almost _too_ bright above them and he grimaced, lifting a hand to shield his eyes. 

Weight shoved Legend forward and he let go of Hyrule, yelping and managing to catch himself on one of the trees. “What the—”

A ball of mud hit the side of his face, smeared down his cheek, dripped down his neck. Legend dragged his fingers through it and turned to stare at the other hero.

“You deserved that,” Hyrule said, a few feet away, hand still up from the leftovers of the throw. He was in a defensive stance.

Clicking his tongue, Legend made a show of thinking about it, then shrugged. “Sure,” he said. Sweat and mud stuck his tunic to his skin and he tugged at it with a grimace. “Still gross.”

“You’re the one who decided to take a nap in it.” 

“It’s not like I did it on purpose!”

Hyrule grinned, teeth bright against the muck smeared across his face. He looked like some strange swamp creature that should be lurking behind the trees with the amount of plant life stuck in his hair. “Positive? That could have been your plan all along.”

Rolling his eyes, Legend picked out a reed that had braided itself in with his bangs. The mud gurgled around his boots at every movement and he looked bck up at the sky. High above them, the sun was round and fat and nowhere near the edge of the horizon. They had a lot of time before the swamp would get dark. 

“How about an hour more?” He turned back to Hyrule. “Then we can head back and... maybe jump in the river.”

“You don’t want to lavish your home with the beautiful smell of hot, sweaty bodies and swamp?” Hyrule wiped his hand down his tunic and frowned as it seemed to come off dirtier than before. “I bet we smell magnificent.”

Legend wrinkled his nose in disgust. “I’m very grateful,” he told the other hero honestly, “that I have mud clogging my nose.”

“I’ll give you twenty rupees to go in just to see Warriors face.”

A pause. A thought. “Fifty,” Legend said. “And you clean up the mess after he drags us both out to toss us in the river himself.”

“ _Deal_ ,” Hyrule said, patting Legend between the shoulders. “Also, hey. Unrelated.”

“Sure.”

There was a Cheshire grin on Hyrule’s face. “Can I borrow fifty rupees?”

 _“No_.”

“Please? I’ll pay you back.”

Legend pushed forward, ignoring the slurping sound his boots made every time he pulled them from the mud. “No you won’t,” he said. “You’ll sit there and say ‘hey, remember that time you tripped in the swamp that you probably wouldn’t want anyone to know about? If you make me pay you back I’ll tell everyone’ and I’d go ‘well, that’s rude of you but I guess in order to save myself some humiliation I just have to go with it’ and you’d say ‘oh thanks Legend! By the way, can I borrow another fifty rupees?’ and since I hate myself I’d give you fifty rupees and we’d start this whole thing again.”

Hyrule was giggling by the time the last words had come and faded away, dissolved into the humid air, and bumped his shoulder into Legend’s. “Come on, drama queen,” he said. “It’s not _that_ bad.”

Sighing mournfully, Legend tilted his head back. “No,” he said, watching as a flock of birds took to the sky. The sound of their wings reverberated across the trees and stone. “You just do something incredibly thoughtful and apologize for not being able to pay me back and then _I’m_ the one who feels bad for even asking you to pay me back to begin with even though I’m only joking and don’t ever expect it from you.”

Reaching out, he wrapped an arm around Hyrule’s shoulders, tugging him in. “So no, you don’t have to pay me back.”

“But you’ll still do it?”

Fuck. Shit. Curse those big brown doe eyes. 

Legend grumbled and looked away. “Yeah. Sure. _Fine_. We both need a bath anyway.”

“Softie,” Hyrule said with a quiet laugh and wrapped his arm around Legend’s waist. They walked on, tugging their boots out of the mud, watching the shadows shift with the sunlight, and feeling the mud dry against their skin and hair. Insects buzzed angrily out of the bushes and in hovering, thick clouds, a bird chirped mournfully in the trees.

It was hot enough that Legend felt like the trees would come alive and ask him for a glass of water and, as he wiped the back of his hand across his forehead, the fabric of his tunic shifted, dragging across his skin. He could count every seam, every stitch, and they were like sandpaper. 

Beside him, Hyrule had pulled away to lift the fabric clinging to his forearms away from his skin. Disgust twisted his features and dried mud fell from his chin in small chunks. 

A crow called in the distance. The insects continued to buzz. Legend felt sweat drip down the side of his face. 

“Fuck this,” he snapped, throwing his hands up. “Fuck that guy. I’m going back and I’m getting my ice rod. This is _shit_. It’s _garbage_. I _hate_ it.”

Hyrule snickered against the back of his hand. “You okay?”

“Fine. I’m _fine_. Why wouldn’t I be?” Legend pulled on the collar of his tunic. “Fucking swamp. Fucking monsters. Fucking _heat_.”

A hand patted his shoulder. “There, there,” Hyrule said, grinning. The _bastard_. “I mean, we went through a lot of it and didn’t see anything. That should count for something, right?”

Right. _Sure_. It’s not like they didn’t do anything and just told the guy ‘sorry’. They did _try_. 

A little.

Legend rolled his shoulders, felt the bones in his back crack. He gave the swamp one more look, really trying to peer between the trees and stone, trying to make out anything. 

There was nothing. Just some insects, the occasional bird, and a pair of glimmering eyes that vanished behind a bush when they caught him looking.

He reached for his shield and a trident flew from the nearby trees.

“Get down!”

Hyrule was already low, his sword sliding from its sheath with a hiss. The silver blade caught the sunlight as it arched, whistling, and hit the edge of an axe with a _clang_ that made bones quake.

Stupid. _Stupid_. Legend gritted his teeth, deflecting a fireball and swinging out. They had been distracted. Having too much fun. _Damn it._

A mass of dark feathers collapsed beneath his blade, falling into the mud and sinking, ever so slowly, into the depths. 

Yellow eyes stared blankly up at him, purple veins curling through the white. 

Black blood dotted his sword.

“They’re infected!”

Hyrule grunted, shifting his back leg in the mud, bracing himself. 

Before him, dark eyes glittering in the summer sun, was an odd man-like creature with the massive head of a horse. Dark grey armour hung from thick, heavy shoulders and the mud was nothing more than a minor inconvenience to its massive legs. 

It huffed at the hero before it and lifted a monstrous battle axe.

Hyrule spun his sword in a slow circle and slapped his hand against his chest. The green tunic bled away, turning crimson and his brown eyes flashed, reflecting blood and magic. “Hello,” he said, sounding like he had run into an old friend during a long stroll. “Long time no see.”

The rubies on his sword flashed as he swung it. A glimmering crescent formed at the tip, stretching through the air, and spun like a boomerang. Wood splintered and exploded outwards. Armour cracked and groaned.

Legend had never heard a horse roar before. 

“Hyrule!” Teeth screeched as Legend caught them with his shield. “Fuck off!” he told the one eyed turtle looking monster—a Ku—as he turned his sword around and beat it over the head with the pommel. “Fuck off, fuck off, _fuck off!_ ”

It fell with a gurgle and Legend snarled, swinging out again to deflect a Moblin trident. 

Metal hit metal and Hyrule snarled to his left. The swamp gurgled beneath them both, clinging to boots and skin. 

_Should have brought the fucking ice rod_.

Legend bashed another monster with the edge of his shield, knocking it back into the trees. Sunlight glinted off the edge of the battleaxe as it swung down, catching the edge of the Magic Sword. 

Metal wailed, hissing hatefully as it failed to find flesh. Hyrule slid back a couple of inches, his teeth bared. The swamp spat as he wrenched his feet out, doing his best to dart backwards—

The axe sang of death as it passed over his head. 

Another ball of feathers hit the dirt, air gurgling in the crow’s throat as it died. 

Legend gritted his teeth and waded through the mud, ripping his legs out of the muck as Hyrule scrambled out of the swamp and onto a boulder. It wasn’t that high—only up to Legend’s waist—or very big, but it was _enough_. 

“Still not wearing a helmet, Mazura,” Hyrule said, jumping back and landing on the soles of his feet. “ _Pity_.”

He pushed with the same momentum, thrusting forward. 

The tip of his blade sliced over white, drawing thick, oily blood. It oozed down the creature’s face, dripped down the front of its armour. 

Red eyes sharpened.

The axe swung around.

Legend staggered forward and the gold tip of his sword sang through the air, catching on the thick muscle of a bicep. A massive horse head turned to face him, square-like teeth opened as if they could tear him apart as easily as the jaws of any wolf—and silver metal cut through bone.

Stumbling back, Legend watched the massive body sway and topple forward, landing in the mud with a wet _thump_. He wiped his face with the back of his hand, grimaced as mud spread from his forehead down his nose, and looked up at Hyrule.

His blade was speckled with infected blood and he squatted, staring down at the monster’s body. There was a frown on his face and he turned from the slowly sinking creature to look over his sword. 

“What is it?” Legend pulled himself from the swamp to sit on the rock. It was warm and he scowled, pushing himself up to his feet as fast as possible. 

Hyrule glanced at him, that frown still shadowing his features. He looked back at the horse-man. “That was too easy.”

“Or you’ve gotten stronger.”

There was a hum. “Perhaps,” Hyrule said absently. He wiped his sword on the cleanest part of his tunic. “The last time I saw... one of these was back in my time. It guarded the final room in the first palace I fought through.” 

Legend looked down at the body. “It was one of the final guards,” he said, not quite asking.

“Yeah.”

“And you killed it.”

Hyrule glanced at him, the light turning his hazel eyes gold. “I did.”

Sheathing his sword, Legend circled the edge of the boulder, looking out into the trees. “Did you ever fight another?”

An inhale. 

“Hyrule?”

The other hero was staring down at his shield. “You know,” he said in a choppy, hesitant voice, “sometimes it feels like I did. And sometimes it feels like I didn’t.”

Legend waited, watching.

Insects buzzed across the freshly dead, attracted to the heavy, metallic stench of gore. Hyrule didn’t say anything else.

“Well,” Legend shouldered his shield and rolled his shoulders. “No use thinking about it now. Ready to head back? I think I’ve had enough of the swamp for the day.”

Hyrule glanced at the monster one more time. “Yeah,” he said, “I think my tunic is stuck to my skin.”

“Gross,” Legend jumped down from the boulder and flinched away from Hyrule’s splash as he landed beside him. “That sounds unpleasant.”

“You have _no_ idea,” Pulling his tunic away from his skin, Hyrule stuck out his tongue.

He whined when Legend poked his cheek. 

Behind them, the swirls of oily blood grew thicker, darker.

Behind them, red eyes snapped open.

The two of them trudged back the way they had come, wading through the more flooded area of the swamp, trying not to slip in the shallower areas. Sunlight dipped behind the trees, the shadows stretched, longer and longer, grasping at their ankles like phantom hands. Flies buzzed around their eyes and mosquitoes tried to dig through the mud caked on their skin. 

Hyrule picked one off by the wings. “Don’t do that,” he told it, before dropping it back in the swamp. 

It buzzed sadly at him. 

“I think I’ve become one with this place,” Legend said, picking up a bit of his hair. The ends crackled, bits of mud falling off. 

“Link,” Hyrule said, rolling his hand and watching chunks peel away like a lizard shedding its skin. “Hero of Legend, Monster of Swamps.”

Nose wrinkling, Legend rolled his eyes. “Ha ha,” he said, “You’re _hilarious_. I hope you do a side gig of being Princess Zelda’s jester. Bet the court loves you.”

“ _Queen_ Zelda, thank you,” Hyrule shook his head and hissed when a clump of hair hit him across the cheek. “And no; I think those stuffy oldies hate me.”

“Why?” Legend flung his hand out as his heel slipped on a rock. “Too dirty? Too _pretty_?”

Hyrule shot him a smile that was all teeth. “Something like that,” he said. 

Legend rolled his eyes. “Maybe you should fill their—“

Metal and wood whirled through the air, spinning out from the trees. It spun like a boomerang, creating a massive, crimson circle before it hit Hyrule in the back.

Ozone sparked, snapped, and the once sunny day darkened in an instant. Lightning _howled_ as it slammed into the forest and the trees exploded outward with a snap and a crackle. Fire burst from their remains, black smoke curling towards the sky. 

“HYRULE!”

The hero was on his side, curled fingers pointing towards the destroyed woodland. His teeth were bared as blood soaked into his tunic. 

Legend slipped in his mad dash to reach him, falling to his knees and sliding the rest of the way. Metal had lodged itself in Hyrule’s shoulder, missing his spine by inches. “You—fuck— _shit_ —hold on, Hyrule. _Hold on_.”

A terrible scream was muffled by clenched teeth as Legend grabbed the edges of the axe and _pulled_ —

It came loose with a wet sound and he flung it away, digging around in his pouch for a potion bottle. Anything. _Anything._ Red, blue, _yellow_. It didn’t matter.

“Fuck, Legend. _Legend_ —”

“I know, shit. _Shit_ —and watch your _fucking_ mouth.”

Nails dug into his forearm as he pulled Hyrule closer, turning him over. He wailed in a sound that was too animalistic to come from a human throat and his arm lashed out, catching Legend in the shoulder.

Fingers brushed glass. 

The liquid inside was blue. 

Legend almost sent a prayer up to the three goddesses right then. Instead, he wrenched the cork out with his teeth and refused to acknowledge the bile that climbed the back of his throat when the slimy, thick smell met his nose. “Open wide, kiddo. It tastes like garbage but it’s the best I got.”

There was a roar from the trees. 

He didn’t bother to look and took a trembling chin in his hand, tipping it back. Breath hissed between teeth and dark eyes stared at him, still crackling with leftover magic. Rage and pain twisted Hyrule’s features into something grotesque. 

Shit. _Fuck_. This wasn’t the _time_ —

Legend shook him a little. “Open your mouth—”

Hyrule did. Maybe to shoot a curse at him. Maybe to call him a bastard. Legend didn’t care. 

He dumped the contents of the bottle onto Hyrule’s tongue, threw the glass to the side, and slapped his hand down over the other hero’s lips. 

“Swallow, kid. _Come on_.”

Hyrule lurched beneath him. Wood snapped behind him.

Legend leaned over and pressed their foreheads together, met those thunderous, unseeing eyes. “You’re okay. It’s okay. Swallow, kid. _Swallow_.”

There was a whine beneath his palm, nails dug into his wrist. And Hyrule swallowed. Again. _Again_. The grip on his wrist loosened, the shaking eased. 

“That’s it,” Legend closed his eyes. “Atta boy.”

“F-fuck you,” Hyrule’s breath smelled of monster tails. His words caught in his throat, tripped on his tongue. “H-hate axes.”

There was a soft sigh of relief. “You know what? Me too,” Legend pulled back. “You wanna throw it back?”

A groan. He’d take that as a yes. 

* * *

Mazura stepped through the trees, snorting. There was a still healing wound along its throat, a blemish over its eyes. 

The battle axe slammed into its chest, crushing the armour into its ribcage. Legend stood across the swamp, Titan Mitt on his hand, face shadowed by the rumbling sky. His lips were pulled back in a snarl as the monster fell back into the bushes. 

Hyrule grabbed onto his arm, using it to pull himself up. There was red mixed with the green and brown across his tunic and he panted, reaching back to touch his healing wound. “It was d-dead,” he managed through each wheeze. 

“It was.”

“I _killed_ it.”

Legend refused to tear his gaze from where it vanished. “You did.” 

A forehead brushed against his bicep and Legend looked away for a second, glancing down as Hyrule pressed his face against his dirty tunic. There was a groan.

“You okay?”

“I—” Hyrule pulled back, stumbled, regained his footing. “I w-will be.”

The choppiness of his words said otherwise.

“Would you like to sit down?”

Thunder rumbled. Hyrule breathed in. Breathed out. His eyes were hard as he looked at Legend. “Not until it’s dead,” he said.

Legend grunted. “Can’t argue with that,” he muttered, tugging off the Titan’s Mitt. “How’d you kill it the first time?” Picking up his sword, he turned back to the bushes.

They weren’t moving.

“I cut off its head.”

“No; the _first_ , first time.”

Hyrule laughed. It was a cold, angry, hateful thing. “ _I cut off its head_ ,” he said again.

Legend licked his lips. 

The bushes trembled.

“I’m just gonna throw this out there; and you can disagree if I’m wrong. That’s fine,” he said as Mazura stepped, once more, through the trees. “But I think we might have to change your plan of attack.”

Steel whistled as it was drawn. “Who’s the court jester now?” Hyrule rolled his neck and winced when the bones popped. 

“Both of us, if we’re played the fool.”

“Oh,” Hyrule stretched out his shoulder. “That was _clever_.”

Legend lifted his sword. “Thank you. I try.”

Mazura ripped the axe out of its chest, slammed a meaty fist against its breast, and screamed at the clouds overhead. Thick, dark blood oozed from its already healing wounds. 

Beside him, Legend could hear Hyrule’s unsteady breaths. _They’d have to make it quick_. But how do you make it quick with a monster that didn’t die?

“We have to go.”

Hyrule jerked, his clouded eyes widening. “What?”

The axe head circled in the air, pointing in their direction. Crimson eyes narrowed.

“We can’t fight it right now! You’re hurt—”

“I’m _fine_!”

Legend swallowed his response, gritted his teeth. “You took an axe to the back,” he managed with a hiss. “In no time, nor _universe_ , is that the definition of ‘f _ine_ ’.”

There was a snort from horse shaped nostrils and hooves stomped down vegetation step by step by _step_. The red armour was crushed inwards, the front of it scratched and carved and broken. Splashes of black dotted thin, white hair—places where the skin had been cut open and healed over and over again. 

Hyrule breathed in. “We need to kill it before it hurts anyone else.”

 _Not if it means losing you._ Legend tightened his grip on his sword. “We’ll bring the others with us,” he said. “Maybe figure out what’s making it revive.”

“That would take too long,” the sky rumbled above them and a breeze picked up at their backs. “We can’t—we can’t just—”

“Hyrule...” Legend turned away from the monster at last, taking in trembling, too-thin shoulders. 

Sweat from heat and agony dripped down the other hero’s face, carving trails into the filth like tears. “It’s _mine_ ,” Hyrule snarled, gaze dark, face reflecting the forming storm above them. “It’s from _my_ land.”

“I know.”

“I can’t let it—” Hyrule swallowed, shuddered.

Legend heard the hooves come closer and he turned his face to the sky. The heat shattered around them at last, a drop of rain landing on his forehead. He breathed in the smell of ozone and water, let it settle in his chest. “Alright,” he said, softly at first. “Alright.” 

The sky cracked and opened, spilling down around them. 

Sword heavy in his hand, Legend ignored the throbbing of his heart in his chest. “We’ll try to kill it,” he said. “And if we can’t—”

“Then we run,” Hyrule turned to look at him.

Legend gave a single, short nod. Rain dripped from the ends of his hair. “Then we run.” The edge of his sword glinted even in the fading light. Its hunger burned through his palm. 

Words whispered in an old language caught on Legend’s ears and he found himself turning to look.

Thick, garnet fire swirled around Hyrule’s blade. The flames were dark, unnatural, and licked up the blade of the Magic Sword. 

Mazura stood in the swamp, silhouetted by the rain, armour lit by a flash of lightning. It roared a challenge to the heavens.

Legend screamed one in response, the magic of his boots flaring as he sprinted forward. Rocks passed him by. The world howled in his ears. 

Mud splattered around him as he ducked beneath an axe swing. Metal sliced through a bit of his hair and, before it hit the ground, he was turning—

The gold of his sword screeched against red armour. It bit deep, carving through metal like it was grass. Mazura flung out an arm, its roar reverberating through Legend’s bones. 

_Back_! His mind howled and he slipped through the mud. _Get back!_

Fire roared over his shoulder, arching over white flesh. It bubbled. It popped. It blackened.

Mazura screamed, wrenching back and swinging around. 

Hyrule hoisted his shield, the torn part of his tunic dropping over his skin. Rain pattered across his head, sticking his hair to his face. He spat something in a language Legend didn’t know.

Hooves thundered forward, Mazura a white, red, black blur. Its mouth was open as it howled, the axe swinging out to cut a Hylian head from its shoulders. 

The blow hit the middle of a shield, slamming into the cross. Legend watched Hyrule stumble, mouth falling open in a gasp that was muffled by the rain. 

Scrambling to his feet, Legend cursed and dug through his pockets. There were the medallions, a few more bottles, his net—

Silver cut into flesh and fire burst upwards. _Hungry, hungry, hungry._

 _Forget the ice rod,_ he wrapped his fingers around his boomerang. _Just burn the stupid fucker to ash._

“Hey! Loser!” 

Mazura turned with a snarl and grunted when enchanted wood smacked it on the nose. It took a step towards Legend and howled when fire carved into its side. 

Mud spat, gurgling as Pegasus Boots cut through it again and Legend slammed forward with his shield and sword. He hit with a thunderous _boom_ and with all the force of a battering ram. Bones and metal snapped beneath him. Air hissed as it was driven from his lungs. 

A thick forearm shoved him away, sending his body skidding across mud. Arms trembling, Legend pushed himself up with a groan, turning to see Mazura do the same. 

And Hyrule, with the sky flashing above him, braced his legs, and _jumped_.

Legend’s breath caught in his throat, wind whipped around his face as sorcery pushed Hyrule higher than it would have ever been possible before gravity caught him and tugged him back towards the earth. His sword pointed downwards and flames spun around him, turning him into a meteorite. 

_Hot damn, kid_.

A long snout pointed up, red eyes widened, and the curved edge of a battle axe hooked around Hyrule’s ankle and slammed him into the ground. 

Swamp exploded in brown and green, blocking the other hero from sight. 

“No— _No!_ ” Legend took a step forward and his knee wobbled, locked, and almost collapsed beneath him. “Hyrule!”

Mazura whirled around, throwing the axe. 

Legend scrambled through the thickening muck and the metal crashed beside him, catching the edge of his tunic. He ripped himself free and hoisted his body back up through sheer stubbornness as a hand lifted a limp Hyrule out of the swamp. 

His sword fell from his hand, his shield slid from his arm. 

“You shitstain of a—”

He had never thought about whether horses could smile before but the expression Mazura gave him was twisted and curled and _gleeful._

Then it turned and headed towards the trees, lifting a hand up to the sky. 

Legend took one step forward. Another. His boots sparked to life and each time his heel splashed through mud there was a crackle of pain through his thigh. 

Violet bubbled from Mazura’s fingers and dripped, opened, _formed_. It twisted into a towering, oil-like doorway. There were statues on the other side; massive and impish. The horse headed creature stepped through, Hyrule groaning and stirring under its arm.

 _Faster_ , Legend begged, urging the boots on. The world passed him in a smear of rain and swamp and lightning. _Faster!_

“HYRULE!”

His fingers brushed brown hair.

The portal closed.

* * *

There was a figure stomping up to the gates of Hyrule Castle. His face was covered in mud, his lips were twisted in a grimace, and there was blood dripping down his knees. The guards shifted as he approached, eyes on the sword at his waist and the shield on his back.

“Get me Impa,” Link, Hero of Legend snarled. 

They hesitated.

He got in the closest one’s face, eyes flashing and teeth bared.

“ _Now_.”

* * *

The throne room doors slammed open, the sound and force echoing through the foundations of the castle. Princess Zelda, in one of her warmer dresses to guard against the sudden cold from the storm, looked up. 

“Well,” she said, leaning back and gently pushing away the scroll held out before her by one of the scribes. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

Mud dripped from a long, blue cap and red mail looked more brown than crimson. Legend huffed and lifted his chin, rain dripping down his cheeks. He didn’t look at her eyes, keeping them carefully to the side.

They both knew it wasn’t from respect; they’d seen each other at their lowest points too often for that. 

“I need a favour,” he spat.

“Anything,” she said.

Legend blinked. 

One of the old men off to the side opened his mouth. The princess held up her hand, silencing his words before they even came. 

“Link,” her voice was soft. 

He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and looked her in the eye. “I need to go to the sacred realm.”

The throne room erupted in noise. There was yelling from the council, a few gasps from the servants. Legend didn’t flinch from it, meeting the Princess’ heavy gaze at last. She took in the mud across his front, the blood down his boots, the clench of his jaw. 

“Leave us,” Zelda told the room.

Silence fell. 

“Princess—”

She turned to the man who dared to argue. “Leave us,” her voice hardened. “Or I will have the guards remove you.”

“No need for them,” Legend said, turning to the council member. He didn’t reach for his sword, but the promise was there. “It would be my _pleasure_.”

Their audience fled, leaving only Impa behind. She shooed away one of the guards who offered to escort her, staying in her seat with a rickety, cracked cane at her side. 

The door closed with a heavy _thump_ , leaving them in silence.

Zelda stood from her throne and didn’t bother to smooth out her skirts, hurrying down the steps. “Link,” she said, ignoring the mud smeared across his features to cup his face. “Where have you _been_?”

He smiled tiredly as she tilted his head from side to side. “It’s a long story.”

“I have time.”

The smile turned mournful and he took her wrist in hand. “I don’t,” he told her. 

Zelda sighed and gave his cheek a pat. “Right,” she said. “Trouble?”

“Unfortunately,” he sighed and kissed her palm before pulling away. 

“He said one of his friends was taken to Lorule,” Impa said, “after some monster hunt went awry.”

Legend turned to her with a huff. “It wasn’t a ‘ _monster hunt',_ old woman.”

She smacked him on the hip with the cane, grinning as he grumbled.

“Lorule?” Zelda frowned. “Are you sure?”

Rubbing at his hip, Legend looked like he was about snatch the cane before he just sighed. “Yes,” he grumbled. “I would recognize the front of the Dark Palace anywhere.”

Thunder crashed. 

Zelda breathed in. “Is it... is it _him_?”

Legend slumped forward, bowing his head. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “We don’t know anything.”

“Will you let me know if it is?”

He looked up at her again from beneath muddied bangs. “Always.”

Her heart was heavy and her hands might have shook just a little, but Zelda straightened, nodded, and took in another tremulous breath. “Alright,” she said. “I have enough magic to get you to Lorule—”

Legend swooped forward, wrapping his arms around her waist and lifting her into a hug. “Thank you!” He pressed a kiss to her cheek. “ _Thank you_! I promise I won’t complain about your stupid knights to their faces ever again—”

She squealed, feeling the thick, wet mud ooze through her dress. “Link! _Link_! Put me down! Impa! _Impa help_ —”

The old lady merely laughed as she watched them. 

* * *

“That does sound _remarkably_ like a monster hunt,” Zelda said, refusing to even look at Legend’s muddy, offered arm. The front of her dress was smeared with the leftovers of the swamp but she ignored the eyes that followed her with all the stubbornness of someone who had to suffer through being turned into a painting and hung upon a wall. 

“It wasn’t a monster hunt.”

The guards opened the doors to the sanctum, bowing as they passed. 

“You went into the swamp looking for a monster,” The princess walked down the stone steps. “What else would you call it?”

Long, blue banners hung from the ceiling, twisted into gentle ribbons as they swayed in a breeze that wasn’t there. A desk sat in the corner, a massive, golden globe beside it. Silver stars glittered across the ceiling, mirroring the hidden night sky. 

Legend traced the constellation of a loftwing, something odd blooming in his stomach that felt less like a memory and more like Sky’s warm, deep voice and the gentle heat of a campfire. “Unfortunate coincidence,” he said. 

Zelda huffed out a laugh and stopped in the middle of the room, tapping on the stone with her staff. “In that case,” she turned to him, eyes glittering with mischief. “Wouldn’t everything you’ve seen be considered ‘unfortunate coincidences’?”

“Yes,” he told her. “Absolutely.”

“And what do you call slaying—” There was a hitch to her breath but she steadied it, acting like it never happened. “Slaying Ganon?”

“An unnecessary insect problem.”

Zelda laughed, turning away to face the rest of the room. There were no frames or paintings on the walls, just charts of stars, of the world, of the portals he had told her about. A massive map stretched across the back wall—a constant work in progress. There were purple lines marking the cracks that led to Lorule. Small splotches of blue for those squares that had transported him to the Dark World. 

Something welled up in him; not melancholy, because that would mean that he missed it. But it was _sad_ in a way he hadn’t expected.

Legend tore his eyes from the map to glance over at Zelda.

She was staring back at him, a knowing look on her face. 

He turned away, clearing his throat. “You said you could send me to Lorule?”

“I did,” the princess waved him closer and grabbed his arm when he was near enough. “It might be a bit jarring but... nothing you haven’t done before.”

Legend offered her a small smile. “Can’t be as jarring as using the natural ones,” he said. “This portal is on purpose at least.”

“A portal?” Zelda let him go and stepped back. There was mischief painted across her face. “I don’t think so.”

She tapped her staff against the floor and blue light swirled around Legend’s feet. He flinched back, shielding his eyes and squinting down at the runes. They flashed, turning green the closer they were to his boots and Legend lowered his arm, watching them shift back and forth. Blue, green, blue again, purple. 

Zelda let go of her staff and it stayed where it was, standing up straight as she stepped back. Legend watched her lift her arms, words from a land long gone falling from her lips.

The castle shuddered. Sunlight dipped away from the windows. A shadow grew out of the cracks in the walls. 

Legend fought the urge to grab his sword and instead turned to watch the princess.

While the darkness grew, her blonde hair became a reflection of the Triforce; bright and yellow and so very _warm_. The purple runes flashed once, twice, and the world fell away. 

The last thing he saw was Zelda’s pale, blue eyes.

* * *

When Hyrule had woken, the rain had been gone and the heat from the swamp no longer clung tightly to his skin. He was draped over something’s shoulders and, from the smell of horse, singed metal, and blood he could only assume that it was Mazura. Ignored the throbbing in his chest, he kept his eyes closed and breathing even.

His foot caught on something that crackled when his toes were pulled free and he opened his eyes just enough to take a quick glance downwards.

It was dark—darker than he’d been expecting—with faint flickering firelight that moved along with each of Mazura’s heavy footsteps. A torch, perhaps, or a lantern. He breathed in shallowly, trying to hold the smells in his nose. 

There was just the faint, damp, smell of freshly overturned soil, horse hair, and old bones.

A guttural voice barked something and Hyrule closed his eyes, steadied his breathing. Something poked him in the side and heat flared up in his ribs. More words darted around his ears, spoken in a harsh, biting tongue he didn’t understand. 

He kept limp, breathing out of his nose, biting down on his tongue to keep his mouth shut. Light danced in front of his eyelids and claws tangled in his hair. They tugged on the strands and his neck ached as his head was lifted. Hot breath brushed over his cheeks and he stopped breathing for a second, careful not to gag at the reek of old fish and red meat. 

There was a grunt.

The claws let go. 

Hyrule’s teeth vibrated in his skull when his chin hit the back of Mazura’s breastplate with a _clang_. 

_Patience_ , he urged. _Be patient._

The ringing in his skull made sure he lost track of the number of steps to the left, to the right, and how many corners they turned. That was fine: he was used to long, cruel labyrinths. 

Teeth brushed against his fingers. Mazura snapped something. 

Hyrule shuddered at the hungry whine that echoed through his skull. He didn’t recognize the sound, which was probably the scariest part of it all.

Wherever Mazura was taking him, he would be alone. It would be _different_.

Metal creaked and Hyrule was tempted to open his eyes—and got a face full of dirt for his trouble. Another order barked, another clang of steel, and he was left alone on the ground, listening as Mazura stomped away. He stayed still, breathing in, urging the long throbbing in his body to cease, and then— _finally—_ sat up.

Thick, rusted bars sat across from him and a cracked, stone ceiling hung low over his head. Moss and vines curled around the walls, water dripped from the corner, and he could hear the faint gurgle of rushing water. He stood, stretching out his legs and arms, walking slowly around the corners to look out the door but still stay hidden enough that they might not realize he was awake. 

No sword. No shield.

He flexed his hand and watched one of the newly healing scabs break open. 

The bars to his cell were thick and the spaces were close enough that very few things could get through. A rat. A painting. 

A _fairy_.

Magic was the only weapon he had left but if he waited for it to recover... the first hour was the best chance. Time gave enemies the chance to starve him, torture him, break him and make him weak. 

_No_ , Hyrule edged closer to the bars. Now was the time to go. Even if they expected him to try.

Even if they had set it up so they could kill him when he escaped.

He used what was left of his magic to call upon the pink spell that would shift his form—and slipped out between the bars as a fairy. Pale light drifted from his wings and he darted low to the ground, sticking to the vegetation, holding onto the magic as tight as he could as he slipped around abandoned statues and a long, chipped staircase. 

Some creature with a large mouth hopped around the corner and he held his breath, ducking behind a leaf, watching as its massive jaws snapped. 

The magic pulsed beneath his fingers, worn thin like a bit of string.

 _Wait_ , he pleaded with it as the monster hopped closer. _Wait—just a little bit longer—_

The magic snapped and he was Hylian again.

Jagged, sharpened teeth turned in his direction. 

Hyrule sat on the dirt for a second, eyes wide as they adjusted slowly to the faded light. “Oops,” he said as he stood up, voice steady. Maybe Hylians just appeared out of nowhere here? He could hope, right? “You wouldn’t happen to know where the exit is, would you?”

His heart thundered in his chest. 

The creature screeched and lunged forward. 

“I’m gonna take that as a no,” Hyrule managed, scrambling out of the way. 

Snapping jaws missed his boots and he searched, frantically for a weapon of any kind. There was a burn in his muscles that felt all too familiar. He basked in it, jumping out of the way of the teeth, almost tripping over a rock. 

He picked it up in one smooth motion and slammed it down on the monster’s head. Bone crunched under the force and the creature whined, scuttling away, thick blood dripping down its pale maw.

Hyrule chucked the rock at it again just for good measure and winced at the pained squeal. “Don’t try to eat people,” he said, turning to head deeper into the dark.

There was a mournful gurgle behind him. 

A buzzing settled in his ears and he tried to pick it out with a finger, rubbing the lobes and the points, trying to hear around it when his nose slammed into armour.

Hyrule jumped back and the edges of a trident caught on the front of his tunic, ripping open green fabric to reveal the brown underneath. 

There was a bull-headed beast before him wearing red that had a few broken arrows sticking out of the shoulders. A jagged, pale scar arched across one arm and the left was mutilated by dark, pulsing boils. It snorted, watching him with narrowed, white eyes. 

The maze stretched forward and backwards, walls tall on either side. Any other day, he would have taken his sword and shield and tried to pass. 

_Well_ , Hyrule thought, shaking out his hands and bouncing back, trying to put space between him and the trident. _At least Legend’s not here to kill me for my stupidity._

And he ran forward.

The bull creature stepped back, raising the trident in defence—and Hyrule slipped around them both. There was a roar of challenge behind him but he refused to look back, eyes on the fast approaching wall. It was towering. Monstrous. Enough to keep anyone caged in. 

Darkness smothered the strange maze, settling heavily in Hyrule’s lungs and on his shoulders. 

He was small. 

He was _fast_. 

In a small space that didn’t mean anything.

The bull-beast gave chase anyway, snarling with the thought of a hunt. It chased him hard for most of the distance but as Hyrule got closer to stone and vine, it slowed. Perhaps it anticipated he would have to turn the corner and, at his speed, slam straight into the wall.

Hyrule didn’t look back. He breathed in the darkness and—between heartbeats—exhaled a word full of magic. 

One foot pushed off the ground and it felt as if the universe tilted, becoming smaller for just a moment to make way for Hyrule’s body. He didn’t stop at the wall; he soared to the top and landed with the jump spell singing in his veins.

Any slight pause meant that the Moblin, who could have caught him because—despite being agile—going up was still slower than going forward, had missed its chance.

Hyrule didn’t plan on giving it another.

Without looking back, Hyrule dropped to the other side. He could see some light, now. Not the faint amber of torchlight but something white. The sun, maybe. Shaking out the stinging in his thighs and the buzzing in his arms, Hyrule breathed in and tried to settle his heart.

 _Deep breaths_ , he thought and took a step forward. More corners and monsters waited for him and so he ran and ran and _ran_. Dead ends tapered off and he could hear the hungry howls of the creatures he left behind, the roar of warning that their prisoner had escaped. 

Freedom made the pain in his thighs fade, made the ache in his chest wither. Something slammed into the stone above his head and he ducked, not daring to take the time or energy to look. 

Sunlight hit him and he stumbled, blinking away sharp dots in his vision. A tree branch caught his cheek and he felt the sting of newly opened skin. 

Still, Hyrule ran. Past trees that looked like they were recovering from a long winter, beneath a dark sky that left a dry ash taste on his tongue, and down a pathway marked by massive white pillars. The ground cracked beneath his heel, thirsty for blood and rain. 

To his left were a couple of odd, stone lumps.

To his right were a few newly lain wooden beams that stretched across a yawning crevice like a makeshift bridge. 

Hyrule hesitated. One second. Another. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the satisfaction in another one of the bull-creature’s eyes. Moblins followed the trail, their spears held aloft, mouths open and frothing from wild hunger. 

Mazura was at their back, teeth bared in a hate that made the rest of the world pale and faded. 

All of them were busy seeing him as a prize that they saw nothing else. 

When Hyrule darted across the bridge, the monsters followed—and a bomb exploded on impact. It had been thrown by a nearby one-eyed monster that had been hidden out of sight from the path by a scattering of trees.

Wood splintered and caught flame and Hyrule scrambled across. He tumbled into the grass as the bridge and monsters plummeted into the canyon. 

* * *

Legend hit a stone floor with a _bang_ and scrambled for his sword as he tried to get up to his feet. Metal clattered and he lurched around, swinging the blade—and caught it on the end of a long, gold staff. 

Dark red eyes stared at him from a pale face, black hair pulled back into simple, but elegant braids. 

“ _Link_?” Princess Hilda’ voice reverberated through his skull. 

“ _Fuck,_ ” Legend managed with a low, pained moan, pressed a hand to his stomach, and threw up on the upside down Triforce he was standing on.

A hand steadied his shoulder, thumb rubbing against the back of his neck. “No, I’m fine—I’m _fine_! Put your swords down! He’s a friend!” 

“Princess—” 

“I’m in no more danger than if I had been in my own bedroom—go be useful and fetch Ravio.”

Legend groaned. “Ugh, _no_ ,” he ignored the odd sensation of saliva filling his mouth and swallowed it with a grimace. “Not _him_.”

There was quiet laughter from the princess. “Unfortunately, _Hero_ ,” she said the word teasingly, guiding him away from the mess he made of her throne room. “I don’t think there will be a way to keep him away once he knows you’re here.”

“ _Fuck_.”

Hands guided him to the floor and Legend put his head between his knees. His stomach was trying to climb its way out of his throat, but each time he managed to swallow it down the back of his tongue burned. The stonework had sanded down scars along the surface—an echo of a battle he could still hear in passing nightmares.

Skirts shuffled beside him and a palm rested, heavy and warm, between his shoulders.

“I’m guessing—” It had been a long time since he had heard Hilda’s voice; he’d forgotten the smoothness of it, the surety of it. “—that this isn’t a social call?”

“No,” Legend managed. “No, I—”

Hurried footsteps echoed across the castle walls and he lifted his head with a groan. The back of his skull rested against the wall and Legend mourned the fact that he couldn’t feel the coolness through his cap. Light spilled through the windows—no longer heavy and polluted, but bright and clear. He wondered where their Triforce was, if they were using it for good. 

Not that it really mattered. As long as they kept out of his world’s business, he’d stay out of theirs. 

The doors slammed open, wood bouncing off stone. 

Legend grunted as the sound vibrated through every bone in his body. 

Violet whirled into the throne room, white and cerulean feathers hot on its tail. 

“Is he here? I heard he’s here—” Ravio bounced to a stop, green eyes bright, dark hair mussed from running. Sheerow fluttered over his head, circling the room and twittering. 

Legend watched the little bird for a bit and fought the urge to grab onto his pack. He bought those items. They were his now. That didn’t stop him from glaring up at those bright, red eyes. 

“Link!”

He jerked and turned, the room spinning around his skull.

Ravio grinned, eyes wide and shining. He was in a tunic similar to Legend’s old one—only his was purple where Legend’s had been green and dark blue where there should have been brown. The damn rabbit suit was gone, though. 

Perhaps the goddesses had a little bit of mercy. 

“It’s been quite a while hasn’t it?” Ravio was smiling, but it was fading as he looked over the mud crusted, dazed hero at his feet. He squatted and poked the side of Legend’s head. “What happened to _you_?”

“Thank you,” Legend said, grunting as he tried to get up to his feet. The shift between worlds caught up with him and he regretted ever asking Zelda for help as his chest tried to swap places with his legs. “That’s so kind. ‘Wow, Link! It’s been a couple of months after I took over your house and didn’t clean up the mess I left behind! You look like shit!’”

“I’m working on being honest,” Ravio said, his grin returning. If a bit smugly. “How am I doing?”

Legend stared at him. 

“I’m willing to take constructive criticism.”

Taking in a steadying breath, Legend wondered why he couldn’t have just been dropped in Misery Mire. “You’re shit at it,” he told Ravio. “It’s unnerving and—I can’t believe I’m saying this—but I miss that stupid rabbit costume.”

Pulling back, Ravio tugged at the collar of his tunic with a pout. “Is it the purple?”

“It’s certainly _something_.”

Hilda snickered at Legend’s elbow and he tried to turn—the castle tilted, hooking around his stomach and trying to fling him towards the ceiling. Legend stumbled, fumbled, and caught himself on the Princess’ staff. “ _Damn_ it—” he snarled. “What the _fuck_ —”

Fingers brushed under his bangs, grabbed his chin, and forced him to look up.

“Lemme see,” Ravio said, stepping into his space. The smirk and pout was gone, levelling away to an odd seriousness that didn’t really belong on his young face. “How’d you even _get_ here? A portal? The sacred realm? Are there cracks between the worlds? I haven’t done anything—”

“No, no,” Legend swatted at the hands. “It’s— _wait_.” He narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean ‘ _you_ ’ haven’t done anything?”

Ravio laughed and brushed his hair out of his eyes. “No reason! Don’t worry about it,” his grin slowly faded to a thoughtful frown. “It’s weird. You travelled just fine between our worlds before; I don’t know why you’d have such an adverse reaction now...”

“Maybe it’s you,” Legend grumbled, staying still as the back of a hand pressed against his forehead and fingers pushed against his pulse. 

“Oh, believe me,” Ravio said, patting both of Legend’s cheeks. “If I had something to do with this you wouldn’t have made it in one piece!” 

Before Legend could think over the words and cheerful tone they were said in, Ravio ducked, digging through a small satchel hanging from his shoulders, grumbling under his breath as glass clinked. Hilda shrugged at his side, looking amused but distantly. Almost as if she was prepared to sit on the sidelines. 

“Here.” 

A bottle was shoved in Legend’s hands and he fumbled but got a hold of it. 

It was full of some strange, lilac liquid. 

Legend held it up to the light. “What is it?”

“Medicine,” Ravio told him, pulling something else out of his satchel. “Drink it.”

“Medicine for what?”

There was a blink. “You have magical sickness. Don’t worry; perfectly normal.” Ravio tapped the side of the bottle. The sound of his nail against the glass echoed through Legend’s brain. “It happens. Now drink.”

“I don’t think I feel entirely comfortable with handing me odd things and telling me to drink them,” Legend said, grunting as he pulled the cork out. “How much will this cost me, anyway?”

“Five hundred—”

“Nothing,” Hilda said with a sigh. “It won’t cost you anything. _Will it, Ravio_?”

Legend downed the potion in a few gulps and grimaced. It tasted like a strange mix of sour fruit juice and bitter vegetables. The bottle was snatched out of his hands before he could ask if he could keep it and was replaced by another; this one filled with a familiar green. 

Ravio groaned. “Fine,” he said. “Nothing. Won’t cost you anything at all. Just a bit of your time; I have some new items and there’s no one in this kingdom willing to buy them.”

“New items?” Plugging his nose, Legend swallowed down the liquid. It burned the back of his throat but settled warm and heavy in his stomach. He grunted once done, rubbing at his watering nose. “I thought you were retiring?”

“I retired as a travelling _merchant_ ,” Ravio corrected, taking that bottle back as well. “I didn’t say anything about retiring from making magical _items_. Where did you think they came from?”

Legend moved slowly at first, straightening from his place against the wall. The dizziness didn’t return and the world stayed happily in place. “Can I be frank with you?”

“Always, Mr. Hero!”

“ _Don’t call me that._ ” The bark in his voice held very little bite, but it still startled a laugh out of Hilda. “Honestly, Ravio: I thought you had stolen them.”

The gasp that came from the purple clad man was shocked, pained, and utterly fake. “Why, Mr. Hero (“ _Stop calling me that!”_ ), I can’t believe you would think so little of me after all this time—”

“You owe me rent money.”

“Well, I—”

Legend narrowed his eyes. “A _lot_ of rent money.”

Ravio shifted his weight from side to side and wrung his hands. Sheerow twittered above him. “What if I give you a new item, free of charge?”

“ _Two_ items. Free of charge.”

“Well!” Ravio pressed a hand over his heart. “That’s just robbery!” He paused, frowned. “You’ll never ask for rent money ever again?”

“No,” Legend felt like he was a rabbit wandering into a trap. “I won’t bother you about rent money ever again.”

Ravio lunged forward before Legend could flinch back, taking the hero’s hand in his own. There was a wide, Cheshire smile on his face. “Deal!”

* * *

The workshop was hidden away in one of the bigger rooms Legend remembered tearing through during his time in Lorule. He didn’t remember what, exactly, had been in it. Probably a monster of some sort. It didn’t matter; he assumed the mess would have been about the same. 

“Just ignore all that,” Ravio said, waving his hand at a bit of parchment that had math and sigils scrawled across it. Some had been scratched out, others had been doodled along the side. “Got inspiration for something new before I heard you’d arrived—”

Legend followed Hilda, copying where she stepped to avoid a bubbling cauldron, a bit of armour that looked like it was sparking, and a long, floppy rug that twitched every so often. Sheerow found a perch in the rafters, ruffling and settling, watching them with narrowed, crimson eyes. 

Damn bird.

Glass clunked against the table and Ravio pushed aside knicks and knacks, tugging out a chest from underneath a pile of stuff that clattered noisily to the ground. Something sounded like it shattered. 

Hilda winced and Legend shrugged at her apologetic glance. 

“Ah ha!” Ravio wrenched the chest open and leaned over the side, almost vanishing into it. “I know that you liked the rods and everything and I did have a plan of attaching this but I got distracted by, well—” He pulled back out, frowning at the wall. “ _Other projects_ ,” the smile came back. “But! I can attach it pretty quickly if you’re interested—”

There was an odd, clear crystal in his hand. It was round like a fortune teller’s ball, but with runes carved around the middle. They flickered gold, blue, grey before settling once more. 

Legend took a step forward, held tilted to the side. There was no reflection of light across the surface, no distorted image of the room; just clear, light blue. “What is it?” 

“An Orb of Storms,” Ravio got to his feet and rolled it, carefully, into Legend’s hands. 

The runes flashed yellow. 

“It can control the weather around the person using it; making storms where there were none or chasing away the clouds just—” Ravio snapped his fingers, “like that.”

Legend brushed his thumb over the small carving. Outside, the sky rumbled.

“It uses a lot of magic, though,” Ravio mused, looking up at one of the windows. The sunlight had fled. “But things like that always do.”

“Yeah,” Legend frowned, eyes catching on the mud dried along his sleeve. “I—”

 _It would have been nice to have earlier,_ he thought, remembering the heat of the swamp, the way the muck had stuck to his and Hyrule’s skin, how the rain—

“Fuck!” Legend threw his head back. “Fuck, shit, damn it!”

“Okay, look. I know that my items are pretty magic heavy but I think that might be a bit of an overreaction—”

Legend groaned. “Not you,” he told Ravio even as he turned to Hilda. “You’re right,” he said, placing the crystal down on one of the more cleared off spaces. “This _isn’t_ a social call—and I’m an idiot.”

“No more than the rest of us, I’m sure,” she said, leaning on her staff. “I had assumed that this would be more business when you landed in the throne room.”

Running his hands through his hair, Legend took a deep breath, held it, and released. “There is _something_ moving between our worlds,” he told her. “A monster. It’s called a Mazura.”

The princess blinked and frowned. “I’ve never heard of it,” she admitted. 

“Neither had I,” Legend said. “Not until today when it kidnapped one of my friends.”

* * *

A rock struck a stick. One time. Another. Hyrule glanced up at the quickly darkening sky and back down at the makeshift spear in his hand. There was a lake beneath his feet, the waters more green than blue, and he watched wood shavings drift about, caught by growing waves. 

There was a house on the other side of the pathway. Light flickered in the windows and something with horns moved past the glass. Hyrule sighed and kicked out his legs, letting them swing. His heels knocked back against the cliffs and the leather made a strange clunking sound that settled heavily in the odd crater-like surroundings. 

Thunder rumbled. 

A drop of rain landed on his forehead. 

Hyrule stretched out his shoulders and threw the rock out into the waters. It landed with a gurgle and was swallowed down into the depths. There was another drop on his shoulder, a third on his back. Lava spat and hissed in the middle of the lake, grumbling as the storm grew. 

Maybe there was shelter on the other side. A tree he could huddle under, a cave that wouldn’t have too many monsters in it.

He got to his feet and sighed. There was a makeshift set of stairs to his right made of old, wooden logs that became darker as the rain hit them. Waves grew taller, crashing down on the side of the cliffs like they wanted to break the stone open. 

Hyrule stepped down to the platform and fought the urge to flinch away from water splattering against his boots. “Deep breaths,” he urged, fingers tightening around his new spear. Staring straight ahead, he took a step out onto the lake. 

The ground shifted beneath him, rolling up like he was standing on a billowing bit of cloth before settling down again. Hyrule held his hands out for balance. Magic glowed around his boots, lifting him a full inch above the surface of the water and he sighed in relief. _Some things don’t change at least_ , he thought, taking another step. 

The lake rose and fell beneath him and Hyrule moved forward slowly, carefully. Rain drenched his hair and tunic, snuck into his boots and trickled down his spine. Still he walked on, dodging around the edge of the strange structure with its spitting lava--

A fireball passed over his shoulder, smoking and crackling before hitting a wave and dispersing in an explosion of steam. Hyrule lifted his spear, pointing it in the direction it had come expecting the skeletal face of an undead fish—

It was not a fish. 

Hyrule blinked and stared at green skin and a singular, wide eye that looked like it was bigger than his head. The creature hissed at him, opened its mouth, and spat another fireball. 

_Definitely not a fish_. 

He did his best to jump to the side and yelped as the lake shifted, the wave that had been his aim fleeing and leaving him in an odd, unsteady valley. The end of the spear dragged along the surface as he tried to regain his balance and the rain caught on his tunic, trying to drag him down into the depths. 

Hyrule clutched the spear in one hand, waited until the water beneath him lifted with another wave and jumped to the next. The boots caught him before he slipped into the lake and the monster screeched behind him, watching as its prey hopped from one hill to the next.It spat another fireball, but the storm swallowed it whole. 

Another popped up in front of another wave and Hyrule jabbed his spear downwards, ignored its squeal, and used it to propel himself that little extra distance. It gurgled behind him, dark blue blood spilling out into the eerily green waters. He didn’t turn back to watch it sink beneath the waves, caching sight of a shape curved against the fading light.

A spark of warmth ignited in his chest. _Hope_. 

Thunder rumbled above and he smiled at the sound. Laughter spilled from his lips as lightning crackled, shattering the darkness and revealing stone and a pathway of water between them—

Fire hit him in the side, crawling over his torso, licking up his arm. Hyurle grunted, slapping his hand down against the flames and the rain protected his skin as he patted out the heat. It hadn’t eaten through his tunic, but there was a black burn along the green like someone had drawn him with a heavy pencil and used a lackluster eraser to smooth out the mess. 

One arm wrapped around his waist, he turned, scouring the rain and waves. The downpour splattered across the surface of the lake, creating a heavy makeshift fog that was only broken by flashes of light. 

_I need to get out of here_ , Hyrule watched as a wave crashed. His boots kept him afloat, but barely. _Land, land, where’s—_

Another ball of flame arched over his head and he ran away from it, stumbling as he made his way over the uneven tide. One of those one-eyed creatures poked its head out of the water but he ignored it, scrambling towards the opening between the cliffs. 

_Come on, come on!_

He could see something grey and metal that turned into wooden steps nailed into a staircase.

A wave swelled beneath him, taller than the others. Hyrule watched the surface of the lake grow farther away and the stone get closer before the wave beneath him arched forward, breaking with a roar. It sent him head over heels into the water and he scrambled, clawing at the surface, the air in his lungs aching.

His fingers caught metal. His nails dug in. There was an ache along his forearm where it smacked against the odd platform but Hyrule ignored it. He grunted, panted. The seams of his tunic stuck heavily to his skin.

Kicking out at the water, he hoisted himself out of the lake and rolled onto the metal. Rain pattered against his face as he closed his eyes. Waves splashed against his thighs and ribs. 

The spear was gone. Pressing his palms against his face, Hyrule groaned. 

_Too close_. 

Something splashed to the surface by his heel and he opened an eye, lifting his head.

That one-eyed creature stared at him, opened its mouth, and squealed when he kicked in the face.

“ _Go away_ ,” Hyrule told it, flopping back down. 

It gurgled and circled where he was laying, coming around to his elbow. 

He watched it with a scowl. 

_Don’t you do it_.

It opened its mouth. 

_Mother fucker!_

Hyrule lashed forward, nailing it in the eye with his elbow. 

It squawked, vanishing beneath the surface. 

“Yeah!” Hyrule called after it. “That’s right! Go away!” Rolling onto his stomach, he grumbled in tune with the thunder above and pushed himself to his feet. There was stinging along his thighs, an ache in his chest, but his feet were steady as he climbed up the odd, wooden steps. 

No trees. Just some rocks and the occasional bush. Hyrule brushed his bangs back from where they stuck to his face and squinted at the sky. The storm grumbled above him, unmoving and stubborn. Mud shifted beneath his feet; the aftereffects of dirt that had no roots holding it together.

Wind pushed against his back, sinking into his tunic, biting at his skin. Hyrule shuddered and wrapped his arms around his chest. Rain dripped down his nose and off his chin.

An itch settled against the back of his neck like a thousand legs of skittering ants. Leaning down, he picked up a rock.

It didn’t settle the rising of unease that clung so desperately to his soul, but it would have to be enough.

* * *

“Your highness—”

Legend looked up from the bag of supplies Ravio had gathered and watched as Princess Hilda, ahead of a red-garbed knight, trotted down the stairs of the Castle. She was in a heavier dress; the violet fabric thicker around her torso and legs. It was frayed a little around the neckline with smidgens of phantom stains across the bottom.

“I can assure you,” Hilda lifted the edge of the skirt as she stepped off the bottom step. It wasn’t necessary: the dress easily ended above the middle of her calf—but Legend took note of her leather boots. “No matter how many men you send with me, I will never be safer than with the two escorts I already have.”

Ravio straightened beside Legend, squaring his shoulders and failing to hide his proud—and somewhat smug—grin.

Rolling his eyes, Legend turned back to the sack. There were a couple of rods he was tempted to ask about, the orb he had looked over in the workshop (the insides were now grey like the skies with small flashes of light), and a heavy looking blue box with a strange, artistic rendition of a bomb painted across the top. 

“This might be _too_ much,” he told Ravio.

“Nothing is ever ‘too much’,” was the immediate response.

Legend opened his mouth, remembered that he had almost a hundred magical rings that did everything from protecting him from electrical attacks to turning him into an octorok, and shut it again. He still had all of them, too, even though he couldn’t wear more than a couple at a time.

“Moblins,” he said instead, “rotten apples. Egotistical council members—”

Ravio winced, pressing a hand against his chest as if the words had wounded him. “Point to you,” he shuddered. “Too many of that last one will kill you.”

“They serve their purpose,” Hilda stepped up beside him. The knight was at her back, glaring over her shoulder at Legend.

He fought the urge to stick his tongue out.

“Are we ready to go?”

Legend pressed his hand against the hilt of his sword. The magic inside it thrummed beneath his palm as a reminder of the journeys he had taken before. “Yes,” he told her.

Beside him, Ravio hummed, looking down at his sack. “Maybe,” he started with a thoughtful hum, “just—”

He yelped when Legend elbowed him and rubbed his side with a pout.

“Good,” Hilda said with a small smile. Her bright, red eyes glittered in the light of the castle torches. “I’ve always wondered what it would be like to go on an adventure.”

Legend shoved the front doors open enough so they could slip through. “Hopefully, Princess,” he said as the cold storm wind slipped past him. The flames and warmth of the hall dimmed. “This will be one of the better ones.”

* * *

There were no trees, no caves, no overhang along the cliffs. Hyrule shivered, rubbing at his arms to try desperately to keep some warmth in his skin. The rain sapped it away, ignoring his layers to stick the fabric to his spine, his shoulders, his legs. Seams rubbed against the inside of his thighs, dragging along the sensitive skin like sandpaper.

He had dropped the rock some ways back, not willing to try to keep a hold of it and stay warm at the same time. Some jelly things had popped up out of the ground but they and the weird crab-like creatures were easy enough to ignore.

Sniffing, Hyrule wiped his nose on his sleeve. The thunder had settled, moving on to more northern places, but it had taken most of the light with it leaving him with the dimness of early evening. He thought about heading back over the lake, taking his chances with the water and the storm and the one-eyed monsters.

The burn along his side throbbed and Hyrule let the idea drift off on the wind. _Not yet_ , he figured, heading further north. _Not yet_.

Maybe when the storm died down.

Maybe when the world wasn’t so dark.

Maybe when he wasn’t feeling so _tired_.

Hyrule kicked out at the mud and watched it splatter across thin, hair-like grass and a couple of smaller stones. Something green rose out of it, wide, white eyes staring at him as it swayed. Another of those jelly things.

It swayed a little in the wind, watching Hyrule as he circled around it. He wasn’t quite sure if it could _actually_ see him. None of them had attacked; they just popped up. Out of nothing.

“M-move,” he tried around chattering teeth. “ _P-please_.”

The words came out more desperate than he’d been hoping for.

It didn’t respond, still swaying.

There was a rock by his foot. Hyrule bent down to dig it out of the mud and almost toppled forward. His fingers slipped around the stone, knuckles numb and unmoving as he tugged it out with an odd _slurping_ sound. It was heavy in his hand but Hyule lobbed it anyway, watching with grim satisfaction as it hit the goop-monster with a wet noise.

The creature shuddered and melted away, gurgling back into the ground. Hyrule stepped around the place it had appeared from before it could decide to come back. His heel slipped on a bit of mud that went deeper than he expected and he landed on his knees, cursing.

Rope tightened around his ankle.

Hyrule lurched forward, scrambling across the ground—

The trap snapped and yanked him back with enough force to almost wrench his leg from its socket. Stone bit into his skin, mud slithered up his nose, and half-drowned vegetation snapped at Hyrule’s face as he was dragged the way he had come. He clawed at the ground, scrambling against anything he could find before he was hoisted into the air.

Rock loomed, swinging towards him like a haymaker. He covered his face with his arms and grunted as he slammed into the cliff. Wind driven from his lungs, Hyrule ignored his own body swinging back and forth as he tried to capture his breath.

 _I hate this place_ , he dragged his hands down his face and opened his eyes to watch mud slip from his hands and land in piles beneath him. _I hate it. I hate it. I_ **_hate_ ** _it_.

There was a snort from below and to the side.

Hyrule turned and plinked at the sharpened end of a spear. Blinking, he looked past to a pair of glowing blue eyes, rust-coloured skin, and a large pig snout.

“Y-you’ve _got_ to be k-kidding me,” He said through chattering teeth.

The Bokoblin squealed.

* * *

Stomping his heel down on a bit of burnt wood, Legend ground it into the mud under his boot. Rain dripped off the hood of his cloak, down the scabbard of his sword, and down the crispy corpses of monsters.

“Never seen anything quite like it, ma’am,” the man overseeing the bridge that would connect the Dark Palace grounds to Lorule Lake—a rather tall, broad shouldered figure named Kullo—said. “We were just packin’ up our things for the night when a lad came running out of the trees.”

“And _he_ did this?” Princess Hilda leaned over the side, looking down into the darkness. She had to move the hood of her dark purple cloak out of the way, revealing the gold of her crown.

There were no signs of the bridge, of the monsters, just the endless sharp rocks at the bottom.

Beside the Princess, Ravio reached out as if to support her—maybe even to pull her back—but he stopped at the last second and stayed still. He smiled when Legend caught his eye, but didn’t say anything.

Kullo shook his head. “No ma’am—got a Hinox to do it for him,” he adjusted his belt and shrugged his massive shoulders. The rain was pouring over his head but it was like a storm across a mountain. “Mighty glad he did, too; sure were a lot of those beasties followin’ him. Dunno what we would have done if he hadn’t blown all of ‘em up.”

“And he headed south?” Legend eyed the heavy, dark storm clouds that peeked over the cliffs that surrounded Lorule Lake.

“Sure did. Watched the bridge go down, got back on his feet, and kept runnin’.”

Legend hummed. There was a sign post on the other side of the chasm. He could probably hook-shot to it.

Beside him, Hilda breathed in, breathed out. It was a heavy sound. “It will take a couple of days to get the wood, not to mention the rest of the supplies,” she said. “I know we planned on getting most of the temporary bridges done by the winter—”

Ravio hoisted the sack off his shoulder and undid the drawstrings. Sheerow squawked on his shoulder at the sudden movement, flapping its bright blue wings. “I _might_ have something that’ll help,” he said, almost vanishing into the bag. His voice echoed across the inside.

Tilting his head to the side, Legend was tempted to shove him all the way in.

“There was a story in Link’s land about a song that had the magic to turn back time and—ah ha!”

 _Turn back time?_ Legend blinked, frowned. There was only one story about the magic of time and it had to do with—

With—

Ravio pulled out of his sack.

In his hand was a pearl-white ocarina. There were smudges on it that, when Legend got closer, looked like a forest painted in ash-like ink.

“I don’t know if it will work,” Ravio clutched it in his hands, frowning down at the holes. “I don’t even know how to play it, but—”

“It’s not the item,” Legend said without thinking.

Everyone turned to look at him.

“Sorry?”

He met Ravio’s eyes. “The ocarina isn’t the source of the magic,” Legend said, voice quiet. The wind settled for him, stilling as if it, too, was listening. He held his hand out for the instrument despite the weight that curled in his stomach. Despite the way his fingers trembled and a dream knocked on the back of his mind.

After a heartbeat, the ocarina was placed in his palm.

Turning away from the curious eyes, Legend took a step towards the broken bridge. The clay was heavy in his grasp, a familiar enough weight that he ran his thumb around its curves, tracing the mouth piece with feather-light touches.

He hadn’t memorized the songs from a dream world on purpose; they had just been something to keep his mouth occupied as he rowed and paddled and floated. Some stuck better than others, but there was a _truth_ to them not even he could deny.

Perhaps they had been a semblance of a deity’s power, perhaps they just existed because that’s what songs do.

No matter their origin, Legend lifted the ocarina to his lips, closed his eyes, and played a song that brought a big blue rooster back from the dead. Ashes rose from the mud, forming and becoming, spinning back into the things they had once been. Parts lost into nothing were transformed out of the air, fitted into place, recreated but the same.

Some of the notes were a bit flat, some of them caught on the rain and sputtered around drops of water.

But his fingers remembered the notes and played them with as much steadiness they could muster until he lowered the ocarina and stared down at the new-old bridge.

“You can have it, if you want.” Ravio spoke up in the silence behind him and the pattering of rain, the roar of the river, the rustling of trees returned.

Legend stared down at the Ocarina. “I’ll think about it,” he said.

When he tried to hand it back to Ravio, the violet clad man ignored him, pretending to be interested more in the tall cliffs surrounding the lake. Hilda hooked her arm in Legend’s and tugged him along, nodding politely to the construction workers who watched them go, awe painted across their features.

“Pretty impressive,” she said. “Where’d you learn how to do that?”

He shrugged and shoved the ocarina into his pack next to the chipped blue one he already owned. “There’s always been power in music,” Legend told her. “Sometimes it just means finding the right song.”

“Some could say the same thing about art,” Hilda turned to look ahead. “The image of beauty, of pain, is always perceived differently from person to person. As long as it makes you feel something, though, there is magic in it.”

Legend watched Ravio dart ahead, his footprints carving through the earth, leaving after-images that stayed long after he was gone. “Maybe,” he mused, “it’s not art that is magic, but magic itself that is art.”

“Oh,” Hilda laughed softly, covering her mouth with a hand. “Don’t say that too loudly.” She nodded towards their companion with the white bird tucked away in his cloak. Ravio was leaning over a bush, examining the leaves with careful fingers. “He already has a big enough ego as it is.”

The smile that formed on Legend’s face was small, but real. “Just between us, then,” he said.

They walked on, through the valley between the cliffs. The storm picked up the closer they got to the lake and Legend watched the olive green waters rise and fall, crashing against the edges of the crater they resided in. Turtle Rock was a flash of orange, a glimmer of red, a spark of yellow through the rain. He could see the points of its towers when the clouds burned with white light before it was swallowed back up by the storm.

“Could he have gotten over the water?” Ravio called over the thundering rain. He was standing close to the fence, scarf snapping in the wind.

“Honestly?” Legend shouted back, pulling away from Hilda to get closer to the wooden steps leading down to the water. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he could fly!”

Ravio threw his hands up. Sheerow squawked. “You’re _utterly_ useless!”

“Sorry! _I can’t hear you_!”

Hilda was rolling her eyes when Ravio dropped his sack again, digging through and pulling out the darkened, crystal ball. He held it to the sky and the runes flashed, glowing brighter and brighter—

Above them, the lightning eased, rumbling like a dragon ready to fall back asleep. Wind that had been pressing against Legend’s back eased, pulling away and ruffling his still wet hair. The pounding rain slowed to a lazy drizzle, to a trickle, to a stop.

“I’m _sorry,_ ” Ravio said, smirking with the storm orb held to the sky. Clouds retreated around it, revealing a long stretch of twinkling, smiling constellations. “Can you hear me _now_?”

* * *

Rope sawed against Hyrule’s wrists as he twisted his arms carefully where the troupe of Bokoblins couldn’t see. They had cut him down from the trap easily enough, pinned him to the ground, shoved his face in the mud. He spat out a bit of the grain still left in his teeth and bared them at the nearest monster.

It ignored him, hopping and talking to the others in snot-filled snorts.

That was fine. _Perfect_ , even. Hyrule stayed as still as he could, half of his body sinking into the ground, the other half bared to the still pouring rain. Darkness had settled heavily across the open area but rocks loomed from the night like rounded, stalking beasts.

He pulled his wrists, watching with half lidded eyes as the Bokoblins tried to light the fire pit in the middle of their camp.

The wood was soaked. Hyrule fought the urge to tell them that any kind of wasn’t going to be happening for a while. A shudder wracked through him and he breathed his way through it. The burn of rope against his skin as he tried to use the rain and his own blood to squeeze through it blazed across his skin to the point of agony. It was hot where he was freezing, and the change in temperature stabbed pinpricks into the marrow of his bones.

 _Just a little more_ , Hyrule thought in slow formed words. Thick sludge settled in his body, dragging him down lower than the mud around him. _A little—_

His thumb slipped through the bindings. Fibres scraped against his skin. Hyrule bit down on his tongue and choked on the sound that tried to escape.

He flexed his fingers one by one. They were lethargic, but responded.

Small mercies.

The Bokoblins snorted and huffed. The rain continued to fall.

Hyrule rubbed his ankles together and winced at the lack of give. Normally he’d use a rock or a sharp stick and hope his captors wouldn’t notice. These ones didn’t seem like they would, regardless, but...

 _Get up, Link_.

He was so _tired_. Years running and hiding and keeping one step ahead of those that had hunted him and there he was; laid low by a group of monsters not even from his own lands.

One of the Bokoblins kicked aside another, pointing at the still unlit pit and squealing loudly.

Who couldn’t even figure out that rain meant no fire.

 _Hylia_.

The sky flashed and sudden bright light turned the monsters into paper cut outs. The Bokoblin in the middle of everything—the one that had kicked the other—had a bone spiked club in hand, pale, silver skin, and what looked like a cluster of bottles tied along its waist. Water dribbled down Hyrule’s cheek and his eyes focused. Mud stuck to his hair as he lifted his head, clinging to his neck and tunic. It weighed as much as iron.

Grimacing, Hyrule ignored the way it tried to pull him back down. _The bottles, where—_

A spear dropped down in front of his nose and he moved only his eyes, looking up at the Bokoblin. Its red gaze was narrowed and rain dripped from its massive, black snout.

Some of it landed on Hyrule’s shoulder.

He wrapped his free hand loosely back in the rope to make it look like his wrists were still bound, and sneered. “W-what do y-you want?”

The Bokoblin giggled in a strangely pork-like way before it lifted its spear, placed the blunt end against the side of Hyrule’s head, and shoved his face back into the mud. 

It covered his lips, his nose, his eyes. Hyrule jerked as wood pressed against bone, holding him down. The burn of want in his lungs swallowed the exhaustion, dug its fangs into the numbness. It snarled and panted; teeth bared and so _very_ hungry.

Wrapping himself in the bone warming heat of fury, Hyrule let go of the rope tangled around his wrist.

The spear lessened in pressure and fingers tangled in his hair, tugging on the strands. Coughing and sputtering, Hyrule surfaced. Mud oozed between his lips, hacked back up in the next instant. He shook, he trembled, he tried to combine the two blurry images he was seeing into one.

Before him, the Bokoblin smiled a crocodile smile.

Hyrule spat at it.

The hand in his hair shoved his face back into the sludge.

It sunk into his nose, pressed against his lips. Hyrule jerked, trying to pull away—

Thick fingers tightened in his hair, holding him still, holding him _down_.

His lungs burned, begging in his ribcage, pounding at the door of his mouth to let something, _anything_ , in. Hyrule didn’t listen, kicking out with his tied legs, tempted to reach up and claw at the hand holding him down.

 _Wait_ , his mind begged his body. _Just a little longer—_

His head was pulled out of the muck and Hyrule breathed in, sucking down air that was damp with sediment and rain. It burned but he didn’t care, hacking up what he could and fighting against the darkness crawling along the edges of his vision. The hand in his hair let go and his face landed back in the mud. It wasn’t forced back down this time, though, so he kept his mouth above the surface, panting softly and watching the Bokoblin.

It made an odd snorting sound, gaping mouth opened as wide as it could get, eyes crinkled in amusement.

Fucking thing was _laughing_.

Hyrule sneered at it, chest still heaving. A heavy hand patted his cheek. Some noise erupted in the campsite and the Bokoblin turned, snorting softly.

It would be the best chance he’d ever get. Hyrule struck, pushing from the mud, and wrapped the rope that had been used to bind him around the creature’s throat. Gurgling, the Bokoblin let go of the spear to claw at his hands. The sound of the pounding rain and the rumbling thunder covered its choked, desperate squeals.

Looking over the monster's twitching shoulder, Hyrule watched the others in the camp. More had gathered around the campfire, squealing and snorting.

None of them had noticed the plight of their comrade just yet.

Hyrule tightened his hold on the rope. There was mud smeared like paint across his face and his eyes were bright in the darkness.

The Bokoblin’s frantic scrambling slowed, stopped. It fell limp against Hyrule, mouth lolling open, eyes bulging and unseeing.

“Not so funny now, is it?” He hissed into one of the monster’s floppy ears.

There was no response.

Grunting, Hyrule shoved its body off him and reached for the abandoned spear. The metal point sawed through the rope and he tossed his binds to the side, eyes on that belt, on those potions. The rope was crusted with mud and frayed a bit around the edges. Old, maybe.

He tested the point of the spear with his thumb.

It couldn’t even break his skin. Stupid monsters with their stupid weapons. At least the creatures in _his_ time didn’t have useless, shitty spears. Keeping low to the ground, Hyrule stayed still, watching them. There was the silver Bokoblin with its bone club, two reds—one with a bow, the other with a heavy looking axe—and one of the darker ones with a chipped but smaller sword.

Hyrule didn’t bother wiping his hair out of his face. Hands tightening around the spear, he slunk across the mud on the outskirts of the makeshift camp. At some points, he lost sight of the monsters; the rain thick enough to act as a curtain. 

The Bokoblin he wanted was on the other side of the camp.

It was picking at something in the mud with the tip of the sword, acting as a lookout but not quite doing its job.

A spear pierced it through the throat and Hyrule smiled up at it, teeth bared like a wolf, eyes wide like a leopard’s. Blood dripped down the point of the spear, but he didn’t care; he left it in the monster’s body to fish out the sword that had fallen into the mud.

Heavy, unbalanced. Hyrule gave it a test swing and missed the familiar weight of the Magic Sword.

But it was enough.

He turned blazing eyes to the silver Bokoblin and focused on his prize. It was still leaning over the fire pit, squealing what must have been instructions. The two red creatures fell under his sword with ease, not realizing they were under attack until it was too late.

The silver reached for its club, snorting and squealing—

Hyrule ignored it, swinging for its hip and the rope. It fell—along with all the bottles attached to it—to the ground, rolling through the mud and coming to a stop. The red potion looked like blood, sloshing lazily in its hourglass shaped glass. There was a squealing-roar to his left, but Hyrule ignored it, lunging forward and grabbing the end of the makeshift belt.

Mud and rain almost allowed it to slip through his fingers, but he held tight, bounding over the wet earth and sliding to a stop. He wrestled the cork off the red potion, prayed it wasn’t poison, and dumped the contents down his throat.

Fire burned in his belly, spread up his chest and through his arms, down his thighs and into his toes. The cold washed away, the aches of the day cleared, and Hyrule breathed in.

It hadn’t been for magic, but as Hyrule wiggled his no longer numb fingers, he grinned. The burn along his side no longer throbbed with every movement of his arm, the ache in his lungs from sediment and water no longer blazed every time he breathed in. The potion had cut through the shackles of pain he hadn’t even noticed in his desperate want but now that they were gone...

Well, Hyrule couldn’t find it in himself to miss them.

Eyeing the green one, he thought about Wind and about Legend.

There was a squeal full of hatred as he popped open that cork too and Hyrule smirked at the fuming Bokoblin as he swallowed that down, too. Crackling energy settled in his bones and he basked in it, curled up against the popping, dancing sparks.

 _Oh, I missed this_ , he thought, raising his face to the sky.

The rain slowed as he basked in the wave of magic and Hyrule watched the clouds clear with a swiftness that could only be done through magic. He wondered, for a moment, what mage had magicked the weather away, when he saw something dark and white arch through the air.

Hyrule turned slowly, watching as the Bokoblin ran at him, mouth opened in a frothing snarl.

He lifted his arm and felt the ozone snap.

 _Thunder_ blazed around him and a bolt of thick, white lightning came down from the heavens, striking the Bokoblin and sending its smothering corpse flying through the air.

Across the clearer lands, there came a hungry, angry, _familiar_ screech. It settled heavily in his stomach, dragging up an unforgotten dread.

Hyrule tightened his fingers around the pommel of the stolen sword and winced.

 _Oops_.

* * *

“You don’t have _anything_ in that stupid sack of yours that could get us over the water?” Legend leaned over Ravio’s shoulder, trying to see past into the black abyss. “A magical raft? Some flippers? Maybe a broom?”

“Broom?” Ravio leaned back to shoot Legend a scowl. “Who travels by _broom_?” He sniffed. “I’m not an animal.”

Rolling his eyes, Legend crossed his arms over his chest. Irene’s bell was still attached to the side of his pack, hidden away in one of the smaller, more discreet pockets. “People who _apparently_ want to get places,” he said. “What about something that would let us walk on water?”

Ravio snapped his fingers. “That’s _genius_ ,” he said. “But no, I don’t have anything like that.”

Dragging his hands down his face, Legend groaned. He could think of about five items sitting in his house collecting dust that would help in this exact moment—he had just been too much in a rush to get them. “Your storm orb,” he turned to the crystal. “Can it change the seasons?”

“ _Seasons_? Do you know what kind of chaos that would bring?”

Legend rolled his eyes, throwing his hands up. “Forget I asked,” he grumbled, turning to Princess Hilda.

She was staring out in the direction of Turtle Rock, its bubbling, boiling lava no longer hidden. The now gentle wind played with the lowered hood of her cloak and tugged at the skirt of her dress.

Pegasus Boots made no sound against the grass, but her pointed ears twitched regardless.

Still, Hilda waited until he was beside her at the fence before she spoke in a quiet voice.

“What monster did you fight in there?”

He watched the reds and oranges and yellows shift, spat, and mixed regardless. “I don’t remember,” Legend told her.

Her fingers tightened on the edges of her cloak. “Are you lying?”

Legend breathed in and the smell of rain and mud and growth settled in his sinuses. “Yes,” he said. “I have been in two different Turtle Rocks and I have faced two very different monsters inside them. I don’t remember which one was in yours, but I remember them both regardless.”

Her exhale was heavy and Hilda closed her dark red eyes. “I don’t understand how you couldn’t hate us. After everything we did. Every hurt, every sleepless night, every drawn out day.”

“Because,” Legend looked over the lake with her, not acknowledging the tears that gathered at the corners of her eyelashes, “Sometimes I’m tempted to exhume the bones of my enemies and paint them in a special shade of red I’ve mixed myself. Sometimes I do want to hate the worlds I’ve travelled and the people I’ve met, no matter how fleeting.”

She leaned against him, slowly, shyly. “Why don’t you?”

“Because the sun is warm,” he told her. “Because the rain is cold, because the past is the past and I cannot change it; I can only accept that it happened.” He watched a bit of the lava land into the lake and sink, bubbling as it darkened, into the depths. “Sometimes you can wish it right,” Legend continued, his voice quiet. “But wishes are dangerous and fleeting.”

“So you keep going.”

Legend laughed softly and it was warm. “Well,” he said with a small grin. “There’s not much else to do, is there?”

Princess Hilda turned to him, looking up at his face. Her eyes searched the lines around his eyes, the curve of his lips, and the way his pink and blonde hair stuck to his skin. “No,” she said, more to herself than to him. “I suppose there isn’t.”

Dark hair pushed between them, Ravio grinning at them both. “Hey, hi,” he said. “I found something that _might_ help.”

“Might?” Legend squeezed Hilda’s forearm before he pulled away. “What do you mean, ‘ _might'_? Will it help or not?”

“ _Definitely_ , then, you party pooper,” Ravio bounded back, pulling them both by their cloaks towards the sack. “It’s still kind of a work in progress but it should be steady enough to get us to the other side—” He fished back through the sack and grunted, pulling something long and purple and one hundred percent _not_ a broom out. “Ta-da!”

Legend blinked. He stared. He blinked again.

“Ravio,” his voice was full of careful patience.

“Yes, Link?”

“That’s a _carpet_.”

Ravio looked down at the massive tube of woven fabric in his arms. “It sure is!” he said, still grinning.

Hilda and Legend looked at each other.

“No, no, hold on,” Ravio tossed it away from them so it landed on the still wet grass. Part of it unrolled and Legend blinked. It was that stupid rug from the workshop. The one that had moved when he had passed. “I’ve been working on it for a while and it’s not _perfect_ but—” 

He spread it out, smoothed down the corners, and stood in the middle. “Up!”

Nothing happened.

Ravio frowned.

“I have a pair of flippers,” Legend rolled his eyes. “I’ll just swim; it’s fine.”

“No, no!” Ravio hopped from foot to foot before widening his stance. “Up!”

There was no movement from the rug.

“Are you sure you grabbed the right rug?” Legend rested his hands on his hips. “Maybe it’s one of the normal ones.”

Ravio gave him the middle finger. “Up,” he told the rug. “Up, you stupid fucking—”

The carpet bucked, almost tossing the dark haired man off as it lifted into the air. Ravio grabbed onto the edges, laughing in elation as he went higher and higher, looking down at the gobsmacked looks on Hilda and Legend’s faces.

“I suppose that works,” the princess said, watching as her inventor sprawled across the flying carpet, cheering for his own brilliance. She turned to the man beside her, nudged him with her elbow. “There’s only room for two of you, though.”

“We can dump his sack in the lake,” Legend said, only half joking.

Hilda chuckled. “No,” she said, “he might dive in after it and I’m not quite sure if he can swim.” There was a strange, contemplative look that crossed her features before she leaned up, pressing a kiss to Legend’s cheek. “Thank you,” her voice was hot against his skin.

“For what?”

“ _Everything_ ,” she leaned back, looking up at him with those deep, crimson eyes. “But especially for your kindness.”

He grunted, glanced away, but turned back to her with a half sigh and a smile. “Thanks for making your monsters three hundred times easier than Ganon’s—”

The laugh that spilled from the princess was full of amusement, but there was a bite of the palm she smacked his shoulder with. “You were supposed to beat them!”

“Oh,” Legend said, smirking, “I’m sure—”

She swooped in, wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and tucked her face against his neck. For a second he stood there, frozen, before he wrapped her up in a tight hug of his own.

“Stay safe,” Hilda whispered, “find your friend.”

Resting his cheek against her damp hair, Legend closed his eyes. “Maybe I’ll come back,” he said. “I think you’d like him.”

“I bet I will.”

They stayed like that for a moment longer before Hilda pulled back. “Take care of my idiot?”

Legend glanced up at Ravio.

The retired merchant had hung his legs over the edge of his carpet and swung them back and forth while he grinned down at them.

“I’ll do my best,” he said.

* * *

To be perfectly frank, Legend hadn’t thought he would have hated any mode of transport more than he had hated holding onto a broom.

He had been wrong.

He had been very, _very_ wrong.

“You alright back there?” Ravio shouted over the wind, turning to look back at his passenger.

Legend, leaning over the side of the carpet, grasped the edges in his fists and tried not to lose what little he had eaten that day into the water below. He didn’t open his mouth, afraid something other than words would make it past his lips, but he did lift a hand and flip the purple clad man the bird.

“Well,” Ravio only sounded amused. The bastard. “That’s not very nice, is it?”

 _Should have just swam_ , Legend thought as they crossed over the rest of Lorule Lake. _Should have just fucking swam._ He spat an uncomfortable amount of saliva that had gathered in his mouth down towards the earth—and it was only because he tried to follow it before it vanished into the dark that he saw the bodies in the mud.

“Wait, _wait_ —” He reached out, catching Ravio’s scarf and tugging on the end. “ _Look_.”

There was a scorch mark in the earth that was bigger than the carpet. The mud was cracked and white, dried in an instant by a bolt of heat except for the middle which was blackened to the point it vanished into the darkness. The whole thing looked like an eye in the middle of nowhere—only massive and long dead.

 _Hyrule_ , Legend scrambled to the front, searching the bodies as well as he could from the distance they were at. All of them had wide, floppy ears and pig noses.

There was no sign of the missing Hylian except for the chaos he left behind. That was fine. _Better_ even. It meant he was probably still alive.

“Link,” Ravio grabbed him by the elbow. “ _Link_ —”

“What?” Legend snapped, still looking down. There was a tug on his arm and he looked up.

Ravio’s arm was steady as he pointed to the north. “Look,” he said.

Legend followed his hand. There was nothing—just the night and the stars and the pale, silver light—

A flash of heat lit up the rocky cliffs and a ball of fire shot up into the sky before it faded.

“Go,” Legend cried. “ _Go_!” The carpet lurched forward and he held onto the edge, no longer caring about the roiling in his stomach.

Fire spun around a chipped blade, dripping off like liquid from the tip. It fell in rain-like sparks towards the ground, highlighting the mud across Hyrule’s boots and trousers, the muck smeared along his chest, and the blood that specked his face. Brown was painted across his cheeks like a messy child’s painting; though it was dry and flaking, revealing a long, dark bruise along his jaw line.

He was snarling, eyes narrowed, matted, tangled hair falling into his eyes.

A creature stood across from him; something with a bird-like head, a curved beak, and long, feathered arms. It had a massive shield on one arm and a cruel, curved sword in the other. Steel met steel and fire flew, arching over white feathers and landing in the mud where it sizzled and popped.

“Lower, Ravio,” Legend snapped, leaning so far over the edge of the carpet that he felt weightless for a second as it dropped—

Fingers fisted in the back of his tunic, yanking him back to keep his body from plummeting to the earth below.

The edge of a chipped blade caught a swing and the sound of their meeting echoed across the sides of the cliffs. Fire arched over white feathers and the bird-thing jumped back, screeching.

Legend watched as Hyrule screamed back, holding his sword out as if ready to charge.

Closer now, he could see the tears in the brown tunic, the thousand little cuts that managed to cut through both brown and green. There were some on the outside of Hyrule’s thighs, more around his waist, one across his collar. None of them were bleeding—but a thousand tiny cuts could be more dangerous than a massive one.

“Hyrule!” Legend cried. “ _Hyrule_! Look up!”

Ravio brought the carpet to hover over the battle. He had a bottle in hand and the thick, black liquid in it looked like an oil-like replica of the night sky.

Hyrule and the bird looked up at the same time and the bottle flew, spinning in the air, and landed with a clatter of breaking glass against the ground. Thick, black and silver thorns grew from the potion, winding around the monster as it screeched and flapped its feathered arms.

Throwing aside his sword, Hyrule ran forward a few feet before pushing off the ground. Pastel pink smoke spun around him, silver sparkles bursting from the strange, fae magic. Clear, iridescent wings sprouted from his back as he grew smaller, smaller, _smaller_ —

And a small, pink fairy darted up towards the carpet.

“Alright,” Ravio said, “That’s pretty cool.”

Legend grinned. He couldn’t help it. Pride welled up in his chest as he watched that glowing, pink dot grow closer.

Wood broke beneath it and the bird screeched.

Legend could only watch as it drew a dagger from its belt and swing its arm around—

He lost sight of the blade in the darkness and his stomach dropped like it was filled with solid lead. 

“ _No._ ”

Fairy light faltered and something long and thick and _dark_ sliced through it.

“HYRULE!”

The pink winked out.

“Wait! _Link!_ ”

Legend jumped before Ravio could stop him, plummeting towards the ground. His eyes were on where Hyrule had vanished, searching for any signs of his tiny friend.

There were none.

The earth was softened from the rain, and Legend tucked his shoulder forward, rolling a few times with the momentum and coming up on his feet. His back smarted and mud sunk into his hair, but he didn’t care. “Hyrule!”

No response.

A bird-like screech drew his attention to the creature breaking free from curled, hungry vines. Thick thorns linked the black and silver wood and bit cruelly inwards towards their prey. The monster was hacking free of it with a sword, blazing eyes focused on Legend.

He drew his sword with a snarl as his face twisted with hatred for the being in front of him. He met its first slash with the edge of the tempered sword and heard more than saw the flying carpet reposition.

A form landed beside Legend and he jerked, swinging his sword around.

“Good evening, _sir!_ ” Ravio crowed and smashed a second vial against the curved yellow beak. Silver power exploded outwards, covering feathers and armour as the glass sharpened into splinters, digging into flesh and drawing thick drops of black blood.

It screamed, wrenching back and reached up to wipe at its face.

“Go,” Ravio said, looking away from the monster only briefly to give Legend a strained grin, “find your friend. I got this.”

Legend shook his head. “You don’t have a _sword_.”

There was a low laugh from the man next to him. “That’s funny,” Ravio said, plucking two more vials from his belt, “I learned from _you_ that they aren’t always needed.”

Swallowing his response, Legend looked up at Sheerow, who was fluttering just beneath the carpet, to the monster carving deeper grooves in its face the more it tried to pull the glass out. “Be careful,” he told Ravio, voice soft.

“I will be,” the retired home invader smirked. “I am a _coward_ , after all.”

Legend gave him one last nod and stepped away, his eyes on the mud and grass. “Hyrule?” He called, swallowing down his fear. “Hyrule!”

An explosion rocked the ground behind him and Ravio cackled wildly as flames twisted towards the sky. The heat scorched Legend’s back, but the light brightened the darkness and he—he—

 _There_.

Amber light glinted off a torn, rainbow wing and Legend ran, slipping on the mud and sliding the rest of the way on his knees. One of the thin, insect-like wings had been torn free and Hyrule was covered from head to toe in muck, looking as if he was one with the ground.

“Oh, fuck,” Legend breathed. “Hyrule? _Hyrule_?”

There was no answer.

He did his best to be gentle, cupping his hands under the small body without jostling it too much. Hyrule’s body felt like a broken toy that had been abandoned; some parts rusted, some parts stiff, and some parts not there at all.

“Oh shit,” Legend choked, fighting the urge to gag. “Oh fuck— _fuck._ SHIT!” He shoved his nose into his forearm, still doing his best not to move the tiny body too much.

And he tried to breathe.

And he tried to just fucking _breathe_.

 _Link_ , a voice whispered in the back of his mind. It sounded like his uncle, like Zelda, like Impa. Another call for him to help, another request for him to get back on his feet. The tears came, hard and fast, choking up the back of his throat and streaming down his cheeks.

There was no movement from the body in his grasp and he pulled his face away from his arm and brushed his thumb—so careful. So, _so_ careful—down the side of the little fairy’s face.

“H-Hyrule?” His breathing hitched, lungs burning. The tears dripped down his chin and Legend pulled back, careful not to drip any on his friend. “Please, _please_ —fuck, I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, I—”

Wiping his hand down his tunic, Legend tried to clear it of as much mud as he could before gently wiping what he could off the rest of Hyrule’s face, off his torso, off his remaining leg and arm. There was a thick, dark substance that clung to his wounds and side and it pulsed like a false heart. It didn’t move when Legend touched it, but it was hard and oddly warm.

The younger hero’s face was pale, his freckles standing out against his skin, brown eyes staring blankly at the night sky.

 _Fairy_ , he had to have a fairy. Cradling Hyrule to his chest, Legend yanked his bag around and dug through the contents. A red potion, a green, a purple—

He yanked out the one with the fairy, muttering apologies as he tugged off the cork with his teeth.

“Please,” he begged the tiny creature as it peeked over the glass. “ _Please_ , I—” Legend’s voice broke with a sob. “ _Help him_.”

The fairy fluttered out of the bottle, landing on his palm next to the tiny form. She brushed her hands over Hyrule’s face, smoothing his bangs away from his face. A long, white wand tapped against the odd, black substance and she frowned, tapping it once, twice.

It didn’t react.

She scowled and trilled as if scolding it, tapping it again with her wand.

Legend wiped his nose with his sleeve and breathed in. It was ragged and choked. “W-what is it?”

The fairy made a chiming sound, looking up at him and waving an angry hand at the black.

“I dunno what it is,” Legend said, trying to guess what she was saying. His shoulders were shaking but he did his best to keep his hands steady. The world was blurring into a broken kaleidoscope and he blinked away his tears, letting them fall down his cheeks. “I dunno how to get rid of it. I—” He swallowed. “Please—c-can you help him?”

_Please, please. Farore. Din. Nayru._

_Not him._

_Anything but him._

Reaching up, the fairy caught one of Legend’s tears in her hand and cooed over it, waving her wand over the liquid. It pulsed, shuttered, and started to glow with a pale green light. Gold answered it, both on Hyrule’s tiny hand and Legend’s bigger one.

The Triforce of Courage pulsed in time with Legend’s heart.

Controlling the magic as if she was conducting a symphony, the fairy mixed the tear and gold light together. It spun, it twisted, it danced—and she laid it like a blanket across the darkness.

Bit by bit, the odd potion ate away the black.

In another world, in a bag full of Hyrule’s things, a small wooden doll twitched. The mouth clicked open as if drawing a breath before it shuddered, fell back, and crumbled to dust.

Legend watched, holding what felt like all the air in the world in his lungs as Hyrule’s side filled back in, watched as his stump of an arm and leg healed over. The fairy cooed, patting a pallid, freckled cheek.

Brown eyes fluttered.

Hyrule arched his back and _breathed_. Torn, broken wings beat uselessly against Legend’s palm and one hand scrambled, digging desperately into skin as if to find some purchase. What was left of his arm ended just beyond the shoulder, already nothing more than a round stump while his leg still contained most of his thigh.

Swallowing, Legend brushed a finger over his cheek. “Hey,” he said, still shaking. A new wave of tears dripped down his chin, and a sob tore through his throat. “Hey, you’re okay, y-you’re—”

Words broke across his tongue like a pot and the pieces scattered where he’d never be able to find them.

In his hand, Hyrule shivered and tried to curl up on his side. Brown eyes were fever bright and his freckled skin pulsed with sickening heat.

Legend brushed his thumb over his side. “It’s okay,” he murmured, more to himself than to the boy in his hand. “It’s okay; you’re g-going to be okay.”

Ravio stepped up beside him as Hyrule fell into a still, frightening slumber. He had black burns across his trousers, mud down his side, and a long, thin cut across his cheek. His carpet floated obediently at his back, some of its own edges a tiny bit scorched. The white sack sat atop it, Sheerow perched before it like a guard.

“I need to take him home,” Legend said, cupping Hyrule close to his chest. “I need—”

A hand settled on his shoulder, silencing him. “Alright,” Ravio said with a nod. He waved the carpet forward and hoisted his sack off it. “Down,” he told the rug, voice soft. It rolled up obediently into a tube.

Grabbing it, Ravio shoved it into his sack, hefted the bag over his shoulder, and offered Legend his hand.

“What happened to that creature?” Legend let the other man pull him up.

Sheerow picked up his abandoned bag and bottle and sword off the ground and fluttered back up, offering the items.

Legend slid his bag over his shoulder, shoved the empty bottle back into it, and sheathed his sword. The tiny, white bird fluttered forward, pressing its head against his before pulling back to settle on a purple clad shoulder.

“It burned,” Ravio told him, finding a stick in the dirt and drawing a circle around them. “Crispy cucco. Yum yum.”

“ _Gross_.”

Green eyes glinted with tempered mischief. “It looked pretty tasty.”

Legend wiped his sleeve across his face, trying to wipe away the evidence of his tears. _Fuck_ , he probably looked a mess. “You do you, Ravio,” he said. There was a tiny little murmur against his palm and he brought Hyrule up without thinking, pressing a kiss against his mud soaked hair.

He was alive. He was _alive_.

The back of Legend’s eyes burned and he felt his bottom lip tremble.

“Your friend,” Ravio finished drawing in the dirt and threw the stick to the side. “He’s a hero too, yeah?”

Not trusting his voice, Legend only nodded.

There was a hum, a sigh.

“Well,” Ravio said as he stood next to Legend in the circle. “I’m no healer—but I can make pretty good potions if I say so myself.”

As Legend picked up his head to look at him, Ravio lifted his arm. The circle blazed with soft, lilac light that flickered and grew like cold, hungry flames. They flared higher and higher, spinning towards the sky.

When they came back towards the ground, Ravio and Legend were gone.

* * *

Hyrule stood upon a land of uprooted lilies, of oak trees, of mountains that had been replaced by rows upon rows of the fallen. Ghosts stalked the dark with ever watching eyes. Devouring. Devouring. Devouring. There was a tomb in the middle surrounded by the mistakes of the past and the promise of the future. 

“It’s the Tomb of the King,” a maiden, a child, a crone told him.

He opened his mouth to respond but the only thing that came out were purple bubbles.

* * *

“Shhh,” a warm voice whispered above him and large touches nudged against his cool skin, readjusting his head. Something lapped at his chest and shoulders, sinking into every crack that existed in his being. “Go back to sleep, Hyrule.”

It was gentle and safe and he was contrary in so many ways, but he sunk back into the darkness anyway.

* * *

There was a clear night above him, full of stars he didn’t know and clouds he had never met. Fairy wings flapped uselessly at his back, trying to keep him upright as the world spun around him. Pink light faded from his body and darkness ate at his flesh. It consumed the skin of his left hand, dissolving it back into the universe as Hyrule could only watch and scream and scream and _scream_.

* * *

Clear, wind-filled notes settled upon him and Hyrule didn’t open his eyes, settling into the song that wove itself around his torso and curled up in his ribs. It reminded him of the sun setting over the sea, of the ache in his feet after running for too long, of warm campfires and stories that stretched into the night.

Humming softly, he tried to catch the tune. His throat felt too rough and he stopped, almost ashamed that he had touched the song at all.

It faded away and Hyrule wondered where it had gone.

“Hyrule?”

He was already asleep.

* * *

Bodies of monsters were spread across the plain. They smothered with fading flames, the grass blackened and broken around them. Hyrule stood amongst them, sword in his hand, shield on his arm.

 _Look at the mess you’ve made_ , a voice hissed in his ear.

He bent down to pick up the pieces of a mirror and watched as a boy with bright pink hair did the same, watched as a child in green repeated the action in his mirror. And on and on and on it went. Different people who make the same mistakes. They came before him, they came after him. An endless circular cycle. 

_You can’t prevent this_ , the words came from nothing and everything. The boy with pink hair looked up and caught his eyes. _You can’t prevent this. You can never prevent this._

* * *

Hyrule jerked awake, shivering and gasping. His body felt like a ragged lily, like a lit Molotov rag. He shuddered as a cloth dragged over his face and whimpered at the throbbing in his too-heavy bones.

“I know,” someone said above him. “I know, it’ll be done soon, I promise—”

* * *

A hungry ghost padded after him, almost unseen beneath the bright sunshine. But it was only a ghost and Hyrule ignored it because he was emotions and blood and bones and flesh.

Because what were ghosts but air and echoes?

What were they, except things given power when you turn to look at them?

Hyrule kept walking and, mile after mile, the ghost was left behind.

* * *

_There was tea upon the table, a thunderstorm outside, and a fire in the hearth. Link cupped the mug in his hands, curled to take up as little space as possible in the small, wooden cabin. There was a bruise along his arm, blood along his chest, and the sword leaned against his leg._

_“Doesn’t look like it’s gonna be stoppin’ any time soon,” Bagu said, looking out the window to stare up at the darkened sky. “Why don’t you stay for a bit? Take a break?”_

_Link let his cheek rest on his shoulder and stared at the leather pelts that were folded as extra blankets against one of the walls. “I can’t stay long,” he repeated softly. His body made no effort to move._

_Rain pattered against the rooftop and the trees beyond the walls creaked in the wind._

_Hours later, he woke up curled on a bed, a blanket thrown over his shoulder, and the fire low in the hearth. Rolling over, he tugged the fabric further up over his shoulders, tucked his head against a pillow, and promised himself that he would sleep for just a little while longer._

* * *

Hyrule woke to distant, muffled birdsong and grumbled drowsily. There was warmth around him, heavy but not suffocating that did nothing to ease the odd pressure against his side. Uncurling, he laid across his stomach, stretching his arms out without bothering to open his eyes. The bones in his shoulders and elbows groaned in time with his yawn and he brought them back in to make a pillow as he did the same to his legs and toes.

Fabric was heavy across his wings but they spread out anyway, pushing back against the weight before they folded back in. He snuggled into the warmth, wrapping back up into the soft blanket like a little burrito, and sighed in contentment.

“Hey, no,” someone said above him, their voice soft and barely rising over the birdsong. Fingers brushed over fabric, digging carefully into his side and Hyrule did his best to wiggle away. “Nuh uh. Don’t go back to sleep just yet.”

Curling stubbornly into the little bed he made for himself, Hyrule huffed and grinned, wiggling a bit in victory as the fingers left.

“That’s how it’s gonna be, huh?” The voice said. It was steeped in amusement.

Hyrule chirped and rubbed his cheek against the softness.

“Well,” they said, “as much as I, too, would like to let you sleep, you have to take a potion.”

 _Potion_? Hyrule cracked open one eye, examining the small bits of light that managed to sneak their way through his little cocoon. One end shifted, tightening. He tensed, warbling a warning low in his throat as something wiggled beneath him, curled around his body, and snapped close like a gentle trap.

Kicking out at the fingers that held him, Hyrule huffed as he was picked up. _Let me go!_

All that came out of his mouth was a squeak.

Slumping into the hand that held him, Hyrule pouted as the blanket was removed from his head.

Above him, Legend grinned, bright eyes twinkling in mischief. “Rise and shine!” he said. “It’s a _beautiful_ day!”

Legs and arms trapped, Hyrule could only glare up at him. _You’re a terrible person_ , he thought as he was carried. The house was rectangular with a couple of windows lining the walls that let in just enough of the summer sun. A couple tables had been pushed together in front of the fireplace, some large black cauldrons in various states of use sitting on top of them.

Craning his neck, Hyrule managed to peek at the first one—

A thick, egg white potion bubbled with no heat source, crawling up the side before falling back in on itself. Scrunching up his nose, Hyrule slumped back down and laid his forehead against Legend’s thumb.

It bopped him on the forehead.

“Nope, no sleep. Not until you’ve drank some of this.”

Picking up his head, Hyrule gave Legend the best ‘yuck’ face he could; tongue out and all.

“Yeah, I’m not a fan of it either,” Legend told him, setting him down on a small cushion that was on the table. It was squishy and formed around Hyrule, accepting his weight yet keeping him supported. “But, unfortunately,” the older hero continued, grabbing a ladle hanging on the wall and a small, flat bowl from the cabinet. “The asshole who made it said that you should drink at least some of it once a day.”

Hyrule watched Legend scoop up some of the white stuff and grimaced as the potion looked as though it was trying to escape over the side. It was solid and liquid, existing in two different forms and reminded him of those stupid gummy-like bots that liked to drop from nowhere in the woods back home.

The bowl was placed in front of him and Hyrule grimaced.

“Promise,” Legend placed a tiny, wooden cup next to him. “It tastes better than it looks; tried it myself.”

Hyrule warbled at him. It translated loosely to an ‘ _I don’t believe you_ ’, but he reached for the cup regardless.

And didn’t grab it.

 _Couldn’t_ grab it.

Hyrule’s breathing sped up, his heart pounding against his ribcage and battling with the crow that had formed in his stomach. Wings beat against his flesh, threatening to tear itself free from his skin and take his whole being with it.

A trill started in the back of his throat, rising higher and higher, sharpening until it burned against the back of his throat.

Where there had been fingers, had been a forearm, where there had been a bicep was only a third of that. The stump was pink and new, blank and angry looking and Hyrule ripped his other arm out of the blanket, cause he could feel it. He could feel _both_ of them but one was—it was—

Something massive pressed against the crown of his head and Hyrule flinched back, staring up with wide, watery eyes. His chest heaved, the long trill cutting itself into sharp little gasps.

“Hey, _hey_ , kiddo—” Legend had kneeled on the floor of his home, moved the bowl to the side, and ran his finger carefully over Hyrule’s head. “It’s okay, deep breaths, come on—”

He felt like he was choking on his own tongue, that every molecule of oxygen was too big to even fit inside his mouth. Hyrule could only stare up at his friend, fingers on one hand curling and straightening. Thick, crimson panic settled in his stomach and he tore open the blanket—a scarf, he realized now, but he didn’t recognize the odd blue and black pattern—to look down at his legs.

“Wait! Wait, Hyrule—”

The fabric fell from limp fingers and Hyrule stared, trembling, at the full right leg and the half a thigh he had of his left. Only one hand clapped against his mouth as he gagged, chest lurching forward as he stared at where his foot would have been.

Bile rose in the back of his throat, stinging in his sinuses while saliva pooled behind his teeth.

Careful hands picked up the cushion he was sitting on, hoisting him up into the air. A finger stroked down his back and warm words drifted over his trembling shoulders as he gasped and choked and sobbed.

“It’s okay, Hyrule,” Legend’s voice rumbled against his skin. “It’s okay. You’re gonna be okay.”

Unable to stop the tears streaming down his cheeks or ease the strange aching emptiness in his chest, Hyrule just closed his eyes.

 _No,_ he thought, _it won’t be._

* * *

Time blurred, and the scarf was back around Hyrule’s shoulders as he stared up at the odd man in purple standing in the centre of Legend’s home. A white bird perched on his shoulder, watching the fairy with bright red eyes.

“Okay,” the person, who had introduced himself as Ravio, said, clapping his hands. He hopped from foot to foot, vibrating with energy that probably would have been contagious at any other point. “The white potion will help you regrow your bones—also strengthen the ones you already have but I like to think of that as a _bonus_ —the pink will help with the skin and muscle, and the purple—” he waved at the cauldron over the fire. “That one will help with the pain. You should _probably_ take a bath in it twice a day but don’t _drink_ it, understand?”

Hyrule nodded absently and flexed his still existing fingers. A numbness had settled across him a long time ago and he did his best to pay attention but the words felt like they were too heavy for his ears to catch.

Ravio glanced at Legend who shrugged back at him. He sighed. “Look,” the purple clad man said, “It will hurt, it will be hard, and it won’t be particularly fast.”

Hyrule dropped his head.

“Hey, hey, none of that,” Ravio wiggled his finger in the fairy’s eye line, dragging his attention back up. “That’s it, look right at me. I’m good at making things. I’m good at repairing things, too. Everything is capable of mending. _You_ are always capable of mending.”

Digging his fingers into the scarf, Hyrule started to shake.

But he held Ravio’s gaze and, after a moment, he nodded.

The smile he got in return was blinding. “Atta boy,” Ravio said and he motioned to the untouched bowl. “Now, drink your potion.”

* * *

“Terribly convenient, but you’re small,” Ravio told him later once he was soaking in the purple potion, “and you’re full of _magic_. So hopefully with you being tiny and with a fairy’s innate abilities we can get you back to your usual self as fast and easily as possible.”

Ducking his head, Hyrule stared at his muddled reflection in the dark liquid.

* * *

Hyrule woke and every bone in his body throbbed as if he was inside a massive drum while someone brought down a wooden pommel across the top. The scarf was too much; it felt like it was rubbing rashes into his skin each time he moved. He kicked at it, pulled at it, tried to curl up as tight as he could.

It was too much.

It was all too _much_.

The world was wrapping tighter and tighter around his throat. Hyrule wanted to dig his hands in his hair and wrench it all out, to bury his nails into his face and tear off every bit of his skin, to pound his forehead against wood until everything just _stopped_.

“Hyrule?”

Shuddering, he tried to curl up as tight as he could to hide away from the sounds and the touch and the whole goddess damned universe.

Cool air brushed over the top of his head and Hyrule shuddered, breathing in sharply as fingers moved under his body, brushing down his side and over his head. They vibrated against his ribs and it took a second to realize that it wasn’t the hand but his body.

“Here, bring him here—” another voice said.

Hyrule flinched from it. A thumb brushed across his hair. He tried to breathe in and the air caught in the back of his throat.

Metal clanked and he ground his teeth together as the tips of rusty nails dragged up his spine.

“Sorry, sorry—Link. Put him in this.”

Warm liquid brushed the tips of Hyrule’s toes and he wrapped his arm around the thumb holding him. Teeth digging into his bottom lip, shoulders shaking, he tried to curl inwards.

“It’s alright,” words brushed over him as gentle hands slowly pried him off. “It’s alright, Hyrule, come on...”

He warbled and tried to hold on, pressing his face against the palm. The calluses were rough against his face, but they weren’t as hot as the bath that waited for him.

“Okay,” the hands left, no longer trying to pull him away. “That’s fine, hold on—”

Hyrule slumped down, finally exhaling.

The liquid brushed against his feet and he scrambled, tightening his hold—

But the whole hand went under, taking him with it. Insect wings fluttered, flapping helplessly at the air as smooth, heavy liquid covered his leg, his thighs, his waist. Hyrule shuddered as a finger brushed over his head, as choked little ‘ _no, no, no_ ’s came out in vibrating clicks, as the liquid climbed higher and higher and _higher_.

It covered his back, lapped at his neck, and stopped.

“There you go,” someone murmured above him. “There you go.”

Hyrule hiccupped and pressed his cheek into the thumb he was holding onto. Warmth sapped away the throbbing in his bones, picking it away with surgical precision. Seconds passed. Minutes. Maybe hours. The tip of a finger brushed from the back of his neck down his spine and he sighed, curling up.

Only when his left arm and leg no longer felt as though they would fall off and run away at the soonest opportunity, did Hyrule open his eyes.

He was in Legend’s hand—which wasn’t much of a surprise—surrounded by the dark purple potion. Ravio was sitting across him at the table, feet propped up on a stool, head tilted back so he could stare at the ceiling.

Neither were paying him any attention. Hyrule hummed low in the back of his throat, rested his chin on any solid surface that was at a comfortable height, and closed his eyes.

By the time the potion grew cold, he was long lost in his dreams.

* * *

The midday sun was drifting through the windows and the front door of Legend’s house was wide open, letting the summer breeze drift through to play with the curtains. Laughter mixed with the golden light, spinning together to create a perfect, braided day.

Hyrule fumbled, stumbled, and fell forward with a yelp. Letting go of the small, twig cane he had been using to help keep his balance, he threw his arms forward, closed his eyes, and hoped for the best.

He caught himself on an elbow and the raw, pink skin of his stump.

Agony pierced through his spine straight into his brain and Hyrule collapsed from his hands and knees to lying on his side. Gritting his teeth, he closed his eyes against the instinctual tears, and breathed heavily through his nose.

Everything burned.

 _Everything_ burned. There was a blizzard inside of him and it ate at the stringy muscle of his heart and settled in the cavity between his lungs. Evergreen needles grew from his bones and he laid there, shuddering and trying to gasp in small, pained breaths while summer faded to winter and there was nothing but overlapping dark trees and white snow.

He wanted to curse, he wanted to scream, he wanted to cut the growing limbs back off and toss them in the fire.

When Legend came back with a basket full of apples, Hyrule turned on his side, tucked his head beneath what was left of his arm, and pretended he was asleep.

* * *

“Okay!” Ravio said, standing in the middle of the floor. “Arms up!” He lifted his hands towards the ceiling.

Sitting on an upended pot, Hyrule chirped and copied him.

“Arms out!”

He spread them out like a T.

“Twist! Twist! Stretch that back!”

Spreading his wings to keep his balance, Hyrule did his best. A few of his tiny bones cracked and Legend—who was sitting on the floor beside him to do the same little exercises—laughed.

Ravio clapped his hands together. He was grinning; green eyes bright, black hair fluffy from the humidity. “How does it feel? Any pain?”

Lowering his arms, Hyrule thought about it, rolling his shoulders, focusing on his body. Some parts still throbbed, but it was mostly where his limbs were growing back.

He made a little ‘so-so’ motion with his right hand.

Frowning, Ravio leaned closer. His eyes were narrowed into threatening slits. “Need any potion?”

Hyrule trilled and shook his head.

“Excellent!” Ravio bounced towards his sack. “Just one more thing, then! You know the drill—lift that little arm for me, buddy.”

Obeying, Hyrule sat as still as he could as a small tape measure recorded the length of his arm and his leg. Ravio hummed, looking over his notepad, tapped the edge with a quill, and smacked Legend away when he came over to look. There was a centimetre past the elbow which, perhaps if he’d been fully Hylian wouldn’t have meant as much.

As a fairy, it meant he had just the last third of his arm to go.

“I’m honestly really proud of this,” Ravio said, setting his notepad to the side. “I mean, I’ve made extracts before, a couple of good potions, maybe, but I think this is my best achievement yet!”

Legend sputtered beside him. “Wait—what do you— _you didn’t know if this would work_?”

“Shush,” Ravio waved a hand at him, not looking away from his notes. “I’m curious what a double dose would do. What do you say, Hyrule? Wanna try?”

“You— _no_ ,” Legend managed. “No! Absolutely not!”

Rolling his eyes, Ravio lifted his journal, blocking Legend’s face from sight as he grinned at Hyrule. “What do you say, little guy? Wanna try it out?”

Hyrule looked down at his newly grown knee, at his newly grown elbow, and lifted his head.

He nodded.

Ravio almost smacked Legend in the nose as he cheered.

* * *

 _Bad idea_ , Hyrule thought, leaning over the shell of an acorn in his lap. Heat throbbed through his body and he groaned, swaying lethargically from side to side, cheeks pink, eyes glazed. _Bad idea, bad idea, very bad idea._

Another wave of warmth washed through him and he groaned, _feeling_ cells form and multiply in ways there weren’t supposed to, adding more and more to his arm and leg.

“You’re both idiots,” Legend sighed. He dragged his finger down Hyrule’s back and the fairy shuddered. He must have dipped it in ice water and the harsh contrast was _lovely_.

“Maybe,” Ravio sounded gleeful. “But it worked, didn’t it?”

Lifting his right hand, Hyrule shot him a thumbs up.

Then he leaned over and threw up into the acorn.

* * *

The day Hyrule woke up with all his fingers and toes was windy. An incoming storm rattled the windows and door, but Legend ignored it, sleeping with an arm over his face and one leg hanging off the bed. Ravio was mixing something over the fire and—by the smell that had settled in the air—it was soup, not a potion.

Spices settled in Hyrule’s nose and he breathed in. Breathed out. The scarf was warm and soft around him so he stretched out each limb one at a time before curling back into the folds, ready to go back to sleep.

So that’s exactly what he did.

* * *

“Oh, this is so exciting!” Ravio bounced in place as Hyrule fluttered to the middle of the floor. “I mean, I saw it _once_ but that spell!” He pretended to swoon, falling against Legend. “That spell did _things_ to me!”

“Please stop talking,” Legend managed to say through gritted teeth. He was leaning further and further away, watching the fairy land on the ground while also doing his best to not even acknowledge the weight against his side.

Pouting, Ravio poked the hero in the ribs. “Why? Do you hate me? Is our friendship over?”

“Do you want an honest answer to that question?”

Smiling softly to himself, Hyrule breathed in, clasped his hands in front of his chest, and dug deep to where the fairy spell had tethered itself to his soul. Perhaps it had been that strange, black dagger, perhaps it was because he had died and been revived, but the pastel pink magic had been trapped around him like a rope under a rock.

Finally, after three weeks, Hyrule picked up the boulder that had trapped it.

Magic snapped, opening, closing, widening and shrinking. The world echoed it; becoming smaller and smaller around him as the wings shrunk into his back and the pink glow to his skin faded away to nothing.

He breathed in and felt his lungs expand. He clenched his fingers and both hands responded.

Words became physical on his tongue and he choked on them.

But Ravio smiled and Legend grinned and he ran forward, pulling both of them into a hug.

“Thank you,” Hyrule whispered against their shoulders. “ _Thank you_.”

**Author's Note:**

> TW: Dismemberment. Temporary Character Death.
> 
> d-do you ever see a word count maximum, look back at the story you wrote, and go oops?
> 
> this is a fic that wanted to be written and who was i to disagree with it?
> 
> thank you for reading!


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